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May 20, 2004 – Chase in Central IL

There’s just something about the 20th of the month this year that draws me to a chase. Today marked the third month in a row where I was considering a chase on the 20th of the month. (makes ya wonder doesn’t it?) Anywho, the main action looked to be in Iowa which obviously was way too far for me to go on a work day. The SPC day 1 outlook had most of Illinois in a slight risk, so while not a great chance it was a start. I was dying to chase even if the setup wasn’t the greatest, so I worked through lunch and left a little early from work.

I departed Champaign around 4:15PM and hopped on I-72 to head towards Bloomington. During the journey, I was socked in with clouds which didn’t make me too optimistic about severe weather occurring. Once I reached Bloomington, I headed north on I-39. As I traveled further north, the lovely sun began popping through which gave me a bit more confidence in our chances. Once I reached Peru, IL. around 6:00PM, I decided to hop on I-80 and head west. I made a pit stop in Spring Valley to grab a snack and to check data. The snack part worked out great, but data wasn’t as good. I tried to get online, but I was in a no-data zone. (drats!) I called up my pal Mike Cox to see if he could provide a little data to me. To my surprise, he was actually out chasing storms over in Iowa. As he was waiting on his storms to do stuff, he informed me that the storms I was interested in were still west of the Quad Cities.

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May 2, 2004 – Chase in Central IL

Today was not an anticipated chase day at all. (seems to be a growing theme this year) I didn’t even look at any sort of weather data when I got up. My focus on this chilly morning was to visit a local amateur radio hamfest in Decatur, IL. I got up around 7:15am and got everything in order to make the hour drive to Decatur. My initial thoughts were to just take the laptop and HT, but some strange voice inside me told me to grab the camcorder and gear bag. (thanks strange voice!) I loaded up the car and headed out around 8:00am. I made a quick stop at the ATM to get some cash, but my debit card decided to expire without letting me know so I was unable to get any bling bling. (the stupid thing ate my card too!) Despite this minor setback, I decided to push forward and continue on my journey. I arrived at the hamfest a little after 9:00am and started roaming around to see if there were any goodies. I met up with my ham/chase friend George (N9IPO) and we made the rounds inside and out.

While we were walking around, my cell phone started buzzing. I figured it was just a weather watch for some place on the east coast or something. A few minutes later, it buzzed again. I checked it out and there was a severe thunderstorm warning as well as a mesoscale discussion for Illinois. (what the heck!?!?) Cell phone coverage wasn’t too good in the building, but I managed to find a spot where I could download the full text of the discussion. The lovely cold air aloft was triggering some decent hail, hence the warnings. I continued browsing the hamfest not thinking much more about the weather situation. George and I made one more pass of the outdoor vendors before heading on our separate ways. One radio had caught my eye earlier and I was surprised to see it still there when I returned. I really wanted it, but all I had was my checkbook and the guy said ‘cash only’. (blah!) Luckily, another ham friend of mine knew the guy and was able to convince him that I was a trustworthy person. (yay for me!)

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April 24, 2004 – Chase to Southeast Missouri

After having a very successful chase on 4/20, I was ready to get back out there and see what else I could intercept. The setup for Saturday looked fairly decent: nice moisture, instability, CAPE was up there, and some decent wind shear. I wasn’t sure if I was going to chase or not, but figured if I did that I would target the very popular oasis of Sikeston, MO. A friend of mine from the St. Louis area called me up and asked if I could take a look at their computer. (darn viruses!) I decided that I could go down there Friday after work, fix the computer, crash at their place, and then chase Saturday if something materialized. Not too shabby if you ask me!

As I awoke Saturday morning, we were socked in with cloudy skies. I flipped on the weather channel and it confirmed my visual observations. (this wasn’t looking good) After saying our goodbyes, I departed Alton, IL around 11:00am in search of weather data and food. I drove around these small little towns north of the area, but couldn’t seem to find any food joints that I was interested in. I had the craving for some Hardee’s bacon-egg-cheese biscuits, so that was my new goal of the morning. I finally stumbled into Staunton, IL and found a Hardee’s. Unfortunately they had stopped serving breakfast, so my choices were limited to the Angus burgers or a safer/healthier choice of the ham and swiss sandwich. As I was eating my ham and swiss sandwich, I hopped online to get the latest weather information. Everything in IL was socked in with thick cloud cover, but further south the sun was popping through.

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April 20, 2004 – Tornado intercept near Kankakee IL

I had no intentions or reasons to chase today, everything looked to be out in KS/OK. Anything that did come our way appeared to be overnight stuff that isn’t much fun to chase. I briefly looked at the models and it showed very decent shear but no cape to work with. As I went to work in the morning, the whole state was covered with showers and thunderstorms. (nothing severe) As worked progressed, I noticed a watch box go up out west for KS/OK/AR/MO. Not having much to do, I loaded up a few weather programs and kept an eye on it just for kicks.

While I was sitting there, I saw a tornado warning pop up on the screen. At first I didn’t think anything of it, but then noticed it was from our local NWS office in Lincoln. I thought maybe they were testing or someone hit the wrong button, but as I looked closer it not only was real but it was for Champaign county! (what the ….!) I about fell out of my chair when this happened and shared the news with several co-workers. The radar didn’t really show much of anything which made me think this was just a farse. Not too long after I received several damage reports around the county that did indeed confirm the tornado. Even with this very local event, I still didn’t think much of it.

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April 17, 2004 – Chase to Northwest Iowa

April…Warmer temperatures, green grass, birds chirping, and of course the beloved severe thunderstorms. Since there hasn’t been many chasing opportunities this year, I was very anxious to get out there on a so-called ‘real’ chase. I can honestly say there has not been a chase yet that I’ve looked at so many forecast models and weather data as this one. From the Day 10 GFS to the morning ETA/RUC models, I think I scoured everything I could dig up on this trying to find some answers. The best area to me looked to be somewhere in northwest-west central Iowa. The models were throwing up some crazy values that were almost too good to be true. CAPE values over 2500, LI’s -8 to -10, dew points in the mid 60s, and wind shear wasn’t too shabby either. All the talk around the chasing community was regarding the overstatement of the moisture return from the gulf by the models. The other issue was the beloved cap was expected to rear its ugly head over the target area. Blah!

Being a weekend chase opportunity, I decided to disregard these ‘minor’ details and give it a go and see what happened. If I expected to go that far, I figured I’d better get my transportation in optimal operating condition. On Friday, I took my car in for its very first oil change. (yummy synthetic too!) I figured it would help maintain the engine as well as yield better gas mileage. Anywho, after taking care of that I took one more glance at the models late Friday night. I decided to pick the Des Moines area to initially stop and get data, then go from there. I conveyed my thoughts to my EMT chaser pal Mike Cox who said he would meet me and go from there. So after fueling/bathing my car and grabbing a quick bite to eat, I departed Champaign around 8:30 AM on Saturday morning. I headed west on I-74 and made my journey across Illinois, anxiously awaiting my first chase to the state of Iowa. Around Davenport, I hopped on I-80 to make my trek to the west.

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