February 19, 2026

Thursday, February 19th, looked like a nice relatively local, preseason chase. A deepening surface low was forecast over central Illinois, dragging up moisture from the south with dews at 60 F and temps in the low 60s F across southern Illinois. Combined with fairly cold temps aloft, CAPE values were forecast to exceed 1000 J/Kg coupled with robust 0-3km CAPE. The setup looked like it could be a photogenic tornado producer with low topped, high contrast storms. Despite relatively modest thermodynamics, the event was well hyped in advanced, which drew a massive influx of chasers to Illinois. SPC upgraded to an enhanced risk in a morning outlook further fueling the anticipation.

My usual setup would return for the 2026 season including a 22" touchscreen connected to a laptop running GrLevel3 and Delorme Street Atlas 2014. The software is getting really long in the tooth but I have yet to find a suitable replacement besides having RadarScope and Google Maps on my phone. My phone would be new for this season, upgraded from the Galaxy S9 to the S25 Ultra, which had robust camera features and would be main point and shoot during the chase. The Sony AX100 camcorder would continue to be my primary video shooter.

I departed Springfield just before 10am under thick fog thanks to rich moisture advection. My target wasn't that far, but models indicated a two round play with a late morning to early afternoon round tracking along the I-70 corridor. Thermodynamics already looked like they'd be in place so I figured I better not hold out for the later show, but play both. Round two looked like it might be across the same area, utilizing the outflow boundary of the initial round, or perhaps further west toward I-55. I was a little concerned about getting drawn too far east and winding up in Indiana as the more photogenic play materialized across central Illinois later in the afternoon.

I set a targe tof Effingham and meandered my way in that direction, stopping short to check data and watch the morning development. While hanging out in the fields listening to kildeers and sparrows, I kept hearing another unfamiliar, cackling bird call, so I used the Merlin app to look it up. Snow geese and greater white-fronted geese were migrating through central Illinois, and this would be the theme of the day.

I started to move on what looked like the round one play with a cell tracking south of Effingham. Huge flocks of geese rose up from the fields as I departed, filling the sky. I hadn't seen a mass migration like this before and it was an impressive sight. The round one play fizzled and I let it go as it rocketed off north of 70. New cells were coming up out of the I-55 area and I decided to head those off near Vandalia.

The southern most cells on the new arc were starting to fizzle as well, but one survived and continued to intensify, becoming the new Tail-End-Charlie with a nice pendant shape. I moved southeast as it was developing, greeted by a broad, robust base in the pretty afternoon light of late winter.

The base approached as I chatted with a couple chasers, the first I had seen, but I knew there were hundreds of them out there and that things were probably going to get pretty busy quickly. I moved east to stay ahead of the storm, but didn't make it far. A tube shaped lowering started to dangle from the base. It looked like an early attempt at a funnel with some twisting and rising motion. The location was well south down the updraft base and the structure reminded me of the first tornado from the January 3, 2023 event.

I watched it, hoping for a repeat of January 3, but the motion wasn't there, and it looked more scuddy than a well formed, laminar funnel.

I held a bit longer this time, watching an RFD surge cut a clear slot into the base, before I scrambled to get across I-70 on the grid and ahead of the storm. I stopped to check the base again once I was clear of it, but it still looked pretty scuddy. A local in a pickup stopped to tell me that he didn't think there would be any tornadoes here and that the sky was the wrong color for tornadoes. I chuckled, but didn't have time to chat as the base was surging overhead, so I took off to the east while he was still in midsentence. My phone went off for a tornado warning moments later. I was under the base for the initial part of the warning, but didn't see much happening around me despite there being an apparent EF0 spin-up somewhere nearby according to the logs. I stair stepped remaining south of the base. The RFD clear slot and developing wall cloud were lit up in a low contrast white.

The storm looked like it was becoming more robust, now sporting some classic supercell structure. Chaser traffic was steadily increasing, but we were able to keep up with the briskly moving storm.

I went east several miles to get ahead of the base before turning in north to approach, planning to cut east again before I got underneath the north end of the horseshoe.

The wall cloud looked dramatically low and dark, but I couldn't tell if there was any strong rotation.

Chunks of scud started to rise up from nearly ground level off the northern tip of the low dipping wall cloud. It teased like it could make a tornado, but it was more of a bluff than a threat, and I wondered instead if the storm was starting to gust out.

I drove under the clear slot as the wall cloud bowed out around me to the east and north with large chunks of scud. Huge flocks of snow geese started to rise up off the field to the west, filling the sky like the debris of a developing tornado. It was the right location for a developing tornado, but this was instead a "birdnado".

The huge numbers of geese were almost more mesmerizing than the tornado warned supercell I was chasing.

Chaser traffic was starting to get really thick, with multiple cars lining up at backroads intersections. It looked like a big Plains event in May rather than a midweek, modest setup in the Midwest in February. I stair stepped east and north with the storm for miles. It transitioned into a high precipitation state, however, and my view fadded. I stayed on it too long before I realized I needed to bail for a cell to my south that was now the dominant Tail-End-Charlie. I thought maybe it would be only a cold hailer like my original storm had turned into, but it picked up a TORR confirmed tornado warning before I could get on it. I decided to cut due south, ironically setting a course toward the town of Birds, IL. I was hoping for a view from the backside of the storm, a long shot as your view is usually cut off by rear flank rain. I actually would have had a view of a partially condensed cone funnel and EF1 tornado, but I was a few minutes late, getting a distant view of the leftover wall cloud instead. Oh well, par for the course and I'm going on a two year tornado drought now.

I trailed the new storm from behind, following it into Indiana. My route into Indiana, however, took me way out of the way and I was miles behind the storm. I decided to stick it out and keep on the chase until nightfall even though my chances of seeing anything were really low. Tony Laubach passed me as we turned off a four lane highway to a smaller road leading into the back of the storm. I saw what I thought was snow on the side of the road and my initial thought was that it was from a previous winter event. I quickly realized it was drifts of hail, however, and a thick hail fog was forming in the ice chilled air as well.

The swath of hail in the wake of the tornado producing supercell deepened into big white ruts, the road filled with slippery marbles and pools of watery slush forcing me to slow my pace. Still miles behind the storm, and with the light fading, I decided to terminate the chase early. I turned around and set a course for home. Another round of storms had fired on I-55, and I was worried that these would turn out to be the photogenic tornado producers, clear air cells lit up in gorgeous setting sunlight. But the thermodynamics and shear profiles were a little less favorable by then and only a couple after dark spin-ups resulted. I set a course to pass nearby them in case I wanted to intercept, and skirted the north side of the forward flanks of a couple tornado warned cells southwest of Effingham. Lightning seemed sparse, however, and I didn't want to deal with intercepting the complex in the dark, so I just continued on toward home getting in a little after 8 pm