June 12, 2013

This was our first day back out on the chase since the infamous El Reno event. Brindley and I were anxious to get out there and chase, but a little apprehensive after dealing with the loss of friends and harrowing escapes. With very strong shear profiles, the Storm Prediction Center actually upgraded to a high risk on this event, although the high was for damaging winds, not tornadoes. The tornado probabilities were still quite impressive over northern Illinois, however. Brindley and I decided to target the Rockford, IL area where morning model runs had a secondary surface low developing. This surface low would enhance directional shear and lift, and hopefully create a secondary tornado target, away from the primary target located in bad terrain on the MS river near the main surface low.

We met up in Rockford by early afternoon and moved on some cells developing southwest of town. One of the storms went tornado warned and we took 20 around Rockford for the intercept. After a briefly stressful encounter with the core, we came out underneath a rain free base. After watching for a minute or two, it became apparent that the storm was dying. The updraft base was exhibiting tight rotation as it withered away, however. Contrast was so poor overhead that I couldn’t get much of a shot of it.

We let the dying storm go and made for new development to our south that was moving very fast in the strongly sheared environment. We made a vain attempt to catch storms moving away from us to the southeast, but we fell behind them without any chance of intercepting. Meanwhile other tornadic supercells were going up on the Mississippi River. Wanted to take it easy on this chase, and not over stress ourselves. Brindley and I decided to let those storms to the west go and grab some dinner instead in Kirkland. We met up with Rob Canon and Jodi Mair and had dinner at greasy local diner, before Brindley and I hung out at a local dive bar. More storms were moving in from the west and we decided to move in for some pictures.

Storms were not tornadic, but they exhibited some dramatic shelf cloud structure.

As night set in, we found a nearby windmill to use for a dramatic foreground as more storms approached from the west and north. The blades churned rapidly in the darkness with ominous whooshing noises. The structure and lightning was not that spectacular but it did make for some pretty stills and a brief time lapse. Brindley and I stayed until the rain hit, before calling it a chase and heading back up to Rockford to get Brindley back to her car.