May 12, 2014

Statistics

Initial Target

Start

End

Storm Intercepts

Tornadoes

Hail

Wind

Features

Miles

Moline, IL

Moline, IL 11:02 AM 5/12/2014

Springfield, IL 10:38 PM 5/12/2014

Moline, IL

0 mph

Shelf Cloud

269

Summary

Cold front play along the MS river. Awaited storms in Quad Cities where we spent night from previous chase. Watched unimpressive severe warned storm with shelf cloud approach from west before calling it a chase and splitting ways. Noted additional gust fronts on way back to Springfield.

Crew and Equipment

Chase partners: Jennifer Brindley ubl. Equipment: Canon 60D, Canon t2i, Canon EFS 10-22, Canon EF 50mm, Sony HDR-xr500v..

Video

Map

Details

I originally had to be home Monday morning, so I wasn't planning on chasing May 12 except locally in the evening. However, my plans were cancelled so I wound up being able to sleep in at the Quad Cities, hang out with Brindley, and chase locally. We had a central location within the outlook area, so we decided to just hang out and see what came our way storm wise. Veered surface winds, and weak lapse rates made us suspect that we'd only be dealing with junky multicellular storms today.

Morning Bloody Mary's to celebrate the previous day's chase:

We hung out at a park all day on the west side of the Quad Cities awaiting storms. A cluster went up on the cold front to our west and we awaited their arrival.

Shelf Cloud
7 miles WSW of Taylor Ridge, IL
6:29 PM

One of the cell began dominant, took on some supercellular characteristics and was severe warned. We waited for it to cross the Mississippi river, just south of Moline, IL. We greeted by a pretty shelf cloud, but the storm was otherwise rather lackluster. It was about all we expected out of the day though.

I drove under the gust front of a huge squall line on the way home and had a couple of amusing encounters. One spotter reported the obvious shelf cloud as a "wall cloud spanning from the northern horizon to the southern horizon." Another spotter had stopped on an interstate turn around, lightbar flashing away, with a tripod filming the mediocre gust front miles to his north.

Conclusion

We pretty much expected a bust for this chase, but figured it was worth a shot since we were sitting square ni the center of the target area, and it was a great time just being able to hang out after our crazy hectic chase the day before.

Lessons Learned

Watch out for Illinois spotters reporting shelf clouds as wall clouds and setting up tripods on the interstate.

Follow On The Web!

Storm Chasers Giving Back!