Statistics:
| Initial Target: | Galesburg, IL |
| Departure: | Westchester, IL 1:00 pm CDT |
| Arrival: | Woodridge, IL 10:30 pm CDT |
| Intercepts: | Lewistown, IL |
| Tornadoes: | 0 |
| Hail: | Non-Severe (not measured) |
| Wind: | Non-Severe (not measured) |
| Features: | Wall Cloud |
| Miles: | 504 |
Summary:
| Warm front setup across northern Illinois. Targeted western Illinois for supercell |
Crew and Equipment:
Solo Chase. Equipment: Kenwood TH-F6A Tribander, Dell Inspiron Laptop. Kyocera data card and router, Holux 236 GPS, Robotic camera dome with Sony XR-520V.
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Details:
| Despite the marginal risk for tornadoes, Friday looked like a decent chance for some supercells across northern Illinois with a warm front lifting and a pretty decent shear and instability combination. I targeted western Illinois based on model guidance for a chance to see a supercell or two. |
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I made my way down to Monmouth, Illinois where the first storms went up shortly afterwards. I intercepted just suoth of town noting a rather shelfy looking base: |
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| Big precipitation core. |  |
| I was joined by Brad Goddard and one of his buddies and we watched some interesting lowering as the base of the storm passed over ahead. |  |
| Reed Timmer and his armored vehicle, "The Dominator" also passed by us. I was surprised to see them this far east on such a marginal day. |  |
| The base started to look more and more interesting and soon we had a tornado warning. |  |
| Brad looking southeast at what is now a more convincing looking wall cloud: |  |
We went east to keep up with the storm, but soon got split up as drove into the back end of the storm's core. After driving around in the rain for a half hour trying to get ahead of the storm, I finally manage to near Lewistown, IL with this big rain wrapped wall cloud coming into view: |
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| I let the lowering pass by before I dropped south to watch it from behind. It seemed like it was falling apart and I knew I wouldn't be able to pursue it as the Illinois River would cut me off with a lack of road options on the other side. |  |
| I headed west to a new storm that had gained a tornado warning. Several miles west of Havana a large bell shaped wall cloud came into view. The structure on this storm was more impressive than the first, but it was also quite rain wrapped. |  |
| There was a terrific amount of cloud to ground lightning by this wall cloud. The wall cloud soon was completely eveloped in the precipitiation core and I bailed east to avoid getting cored. I gassed up in Havana and the storm proceeded to die as I watched the radar scans come in. The other storms in the area looked like they were starting to fizzle as well so I called it a chase and started heading. |  |
| I was treated to very pretty skies on the way home. Some mammatus under a dieing thunderstorm's anvil: |  |
| Deep blue and pink hues under the anvil of a thunderstorm north of Bloomington: |  |
| Sun streaks across some anvil blow off: |  |
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| Conclusion:
This was a fun chase given the low expectations, and I bagged a couple of decent looking wall clouds and had a scenic drive home. No tornado reports came in on these storms so I didn't miss anything either.
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Lessons Learned:
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