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May 10, 2003 – Tornado intercept in Western Illinois

What a week of weather across the midwest and plains, but it wasn’t done yet. One more final burst of severe weather was in store before some calm finally rolled in. Would Illinois be in a path for this deadly destruction and wild weather? The SPC certainly thought so when they issued their unprecedented fourth high risk of the week on Saturday morning. The first morning Day 1 outlook just had part of northern and central Illinois in the high risk, with the rest of the state in a moderate risk. Further updates greatly expanded the area of high risk to stretch all the way from northeast Oklahoma to Ohio. The last high risk we’ve had here in Illinois was back in October 24th of 2001 and I remember what happened that day. Given the amount of severe weather throughout the week, I had very little doubt that this high risk would pan out.

The day started off very active with numerous storms moving throughout the state with many being severe and even tornadic. My early attempt to chase these was in vain as they were just too far out of my reach. I then noticed how quickly the skies cleared out and made way for the lovely sun to heat up the atmosphere. While this somewhat provided a cap, I figured that would actually help to get some really good storms late in the afternoon/evening. With my car not in the best of shape, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to chase. While looking at data on the computer, I received a voice mail from Matt Hartman and Joe Walters from INCHASE. They were just west of town here and well in range of the local 2m repeater. They were heading towards Springfield and then would check data from there. As they reached the range of the repeater, we said our goodbyes and I wished them well on their attempt to chase in a high risk area.

Not much was happening in the early afternoon as the cap was keeping storms from going up. I received an email from my chase partner Darin Kaiser who said that he really wanted to chase, but was stuck at work till 5:00pm. He asked me if I wanted to chase after then and if so where to target. After looking at some data, I thought we’d head out to Jacksonville, IL and then go from there. So maybe all was not lost? Numerous PDS tornado watches were issued and satellite showed that things were just about ready to explode. I continued watching data throughout the afternoon and noticed some storms rapidly develop in northern and central Missouri. (goodbye Mr. Cap!!) They went severe fairly quickly and then alot of tornado warnings were issued.

Darin arrived at my house a little before 6:00pm and I loaded up all my gear. We headed west on I-72 towards our originally target area of Jacksonville, IL. On the way over, I was able to pick up WAND on my TV and it appeared the storms were still going strong as they made their way into Illinois. As we continued westward, we could see the tops of the storms for quite a distance. Once we arrived in Jacksonville, we weren’t sure where to head from there as we hadn’t heard of any warnings close to us. Seeing a storm to our northwest, we decided to hop off I-72 and head north on US 67. As we were heading north, we received a tornado warning (both radar indicated and spotter confirmed) for Brown County which was just to our north. Judging from the speed of the storm and the towns that were in the path, we decided to stay on 67 and attempt to intercept it.

As we entered Beardstown, IL, lightning was definitely increasing to our north. We made a quick pit stop for gas and then continued on US 67. Around 8:15pm we entered Rushville, IL where tornado sirens were blaring. (here we go!) As we proceeded north on US 67, we noticed a lowering to our west. The weather radio went off and alerted us of a tornado warning for northern Brown county. (the county just to our southwest) We pulled off the road about half a mile north of US 24 and watched the lowering. There were some trees in the way, but once it got closer we could see a little more structure. Rather than using the LCD screen on the camcorder, I was looking through the viewfinder to video the storm. I took a quick glance up from the viewfinder and then spotted the tornado. It didn’t stay visible very long as it quickly became rain wrapped. I wanted to get out and tripod the camcorder, but we had lightning strikes way too close to be standing outside the vehicle holding on to a metal object. 🙂

We attempted to follow the storm on US 67, but just up the road there were 2 police officers that were blocking the road. We headed back into town and hopped on US 24 that took us on a more northeast course. About a mile north of Rushville, we noticed a wall cloud to our west. We watched it for a few minutes and it eventually dissipated. We continued north on US 24 and briefly spotted another wall cloud amongst the lightning flashes. At 8:56pm, we entered the town of Astoria, IL which was completely without power. We spotted a fire truck pulling out with its lights on, so we followed it up the road and came across some damage from the storm. Numerous trees were knocked down and some sort of metal shed had been destroyed. We drove up to a couple houses and asked if they needed any help, but they said they were ok. As we continued out of town, there was a big piece of metal in the middle of the road but luckily we swerved around it. We also noticed many power poles and stop signs bent over, so this tornado must have had some punch to it. We noticed a convoy of cars that were pulled off the road with one car having all kinds of lights going. We assumed it was some sort of chaser convergence, but at the time we didn’t know who it was. (more on this later)

We continued on US 24 and then jogged over to Rt. 136 and went east. Around 9:40pm, we entered the town of Havana, IL where yet again tornado sirens were sounding. We pulled up next to a gas station and noticed a couple ladies standing outside. We asked them if this was the first or second siren blast with which they replied it was the second. We assumed that it was the all clear as there wasn’t anything to the west of town. We continued east on Rt. 136 and heard several tornado warnings to our north. Unfortunately the storms were moving way too fast to intercept them, so we just kept on going east. At this point we were both getting hungry, so we headed south to Lincoln, IL to find some food.

Having bagged another tornado, I was in the mood for steak. Since neither one of us is rich, we decided to have the next best thing: Steak and Shake! 🙂 As we pulled in, we noticed a gathering of folks out in front of the restaurant. As we approached them, we asked if they were storm chasers. It turns out that they were the chase team from Valparaiso University in Indiana, better known as VUSIT. Ironically, they were the ones that we saw pulled over north of Astoria with all the flashing lights. 🙂 After talking with them for a few minutes, we headed inside for a much needed meal. After dinner, we decided to head back towards home as all the chasable storms were well out of our reach. We made a quick pit stop at Darin’s house in Clinton to check radar, but everything in the area was dying down. I arrived home in Champaign around 1:15am, very tired yet excited about another great chase.

Final thoughts:
Finally a high risk success! This was the first time I’d run through a damage path after a tornado, so it was somewhat disturbing to see that sort of thing. Luckily no one was killed during this event, so that is very good to hear. One thing I was rather surprised about is that Darin and I did not encounter any hail. I think that’s a first for us, we always get hail! 🙂 We heard numerous chasers on the 2m rig during our chase, so it sounds like alot of other folks were out and about.

Special Thanks:
As always, thanks to Darin for the transportation and enjoyable chasing. I’d also like to thank WAND-TV in Decatur, IL for showing our video on several newscasts.

Total Chase Time: 7 hours
Total Chase Miles: 315 miles

Stan Olson 2003, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments

April 30, 2003 – Tornado intercept in Northwest IL

Today’s setup looked very interesting and promising, but would I be able to chase today? The models seemed to be all over the place with the system, so I wasn’t sure where this thing was going to strike. The wonderful CAPE values were forecasted to make a welcomed return to the area with values around 1500-3000 depending on the location. Dewpoints were also looking good and were on their way to 60+ without even looking at the models. Lifted indices were also forecasted to be anywhere between -4 and -8, so there was definitely some very nice instability. Finally, the helicity values weren’t too good in central IL, but in northern and northwestern IL they were looking much better with values projected to be between 200-350.

My chase partner Darin Kaiser usually has Wednesday’s off from work, but he had several folks set up appointments with him so chasing was put on hold for awhile. I continued to monitor the situation throughout the morning and pondered several target areas in case I could chase. Obviously, I knew we couldn’t chase in northwest Missouri or southwest Iowa as it was just too far away. I kept looking at northeast Missouri and southeast Iowa though as the models were showing some promising signs for that area. The SPC Day 1 outlook painted a swath of moderate risk from eastern Kansas to northeast Illinois. I wasn’t too confident in that forecast, but decided to see how it all panned out. As I was eating lunch, an MCD was issued for the area regarding possible thunderstorm development.

Shortly after the MCD was issued, I received an email from Darin saying that he was now available to chase, woo hoo! Now the problem was picking a target area. While I was debating that, a severe thunderstorm watch was issued for northern Illinois/Indiana. I initially wanted to head west towards Lincoln, IL, but then thought we’d have a better chance further north. I packed up the gear and awaited Darin’s arrival here in Champaign.

Darin showed up a little after 2:00pm and we decided to head west on I-74 towards Bloomington, IL. On the way up there we saw many towers try to go up, but all of them fizzled just as quickly. Was this a bust in the making?? With it still early in the afternoon, we weren’t about to give up just yet. As we entered the Bloomington area, we got on Route 9 and headed west. It was still mostly sunny and the air still felt very moist, so we were on the right track. We continued west on Route 9 and reached the town of Pekin, IL, but there still wasn’t much going on. As we continued west of town, Darin called Mark Sefried for some weather updates. He said nothing much was going on in the watch area, but told us he was heading to Burlington, Iowa to await further storm development. With nothing else to do, we decided to head in that direction to possibly join up with them.

About five miles east of Blandinsville, IL on Route 9 we received word that a tornado watch had been issued for parts of Iowa/Illinois/Missouri/Kansas, so something was brewing. About ten minutes later, the weather radio went off for a tornado warning in Henry and Louisa counties in southeast Iowa. While I had a county outline map of Illinois and Missouri with me, I didn’t have squat for Iowa. Seeing how things were starting to fire up, we made a quick pit stop in La Harpe, IL for gas and an Iowa map. We headed north on Highway 94 and continued getting warnings on storms just across the border in Iowa. We switched over to US 34 and headed west towards Burlington, IA, but quickly scratched that plan when it was clear that all the action was north of us. We turned around and headed east until we found Highway 164 that took us north towards the storms. Judging from the incredible areal coverage of this cell, we knew this one was really cooking.

We continued on Highway 164 until it jogged east, at which point we headed north on Highway 94. Once out of the way of trees we could finally see some of the storm features. I noticed a very sharp looking shelf cloud that was more upright than I’d ever seen. We pulled off on 30th street or about 6 miles due south of Aledo, IL. (6:35pm) The storm was to our NNE and we had a very pronounced wall cloud with a funnel hanging from it. The contrast wasn’t too good so we couldn’t tell if the funnel was on the ground or not at that time. The motion of it was pretty impressive though, so we knew this baby had some fire in it. To the left of the wall cloud we spotted a very thin funnel that appeared to extend all the way to the ground. Darin and I believe that it was actually a landspout. This is when the storm got really interesting as it moved to our east. We had some strong warm and humid winds blasting us and then all of a sudden it became cold and dry, it was unreal. I think it was the RFD wrapping around the wall cloud, just remarkable! Soon after that happened, another funnel dropped down from the center of the wall cloud. Not sure if it touched down or not, but it got real calm and we could hear a definite roar coming from the storm.

The storm continued to move off to our east, so we decided to follow it. We headed north about a mile and then went east on 40th road. Finally, we turned north on 230th road and pulled off to observe the storm again. (Time: 6:55pm – Location: 7 miles SE of Aledo, IL / 6 miles SW of Viola, IL / 1/4th mile west of Burgess, IL.) The storm was now due north of us about 4-5 miles, continuing to move off to the ENE. As we were shooting video, I yelled to Darin: “FUNNEL! FUNNEL!” At this point, I just happened to glance at the camcorder and notice it was still in standby mode therefore not recording any of this nice funnel cloud. (great Stan.. The one time you get close to a funnel and you screw up the video!) I quickly hit the record button and just after I did so, Darin yelled out: “TORNADO TORNADO!” (6:57pm) Sure enough, there was the coveted debris cloud I’d waited my whole life to see! Unfortunately it didn’t stay visible very long as it became rain-wrapped.

At this point we kept heading east to try to stay up with the storm. While we were moving to intercept it again, I tuned around on my scanner and found the local spotters/law enforcement talking about the storms. They were reporting lots of power poles down just north of us along with some other damage reports. We saw an Illinois State Police car with its lights going, so we knew he was in hot pursuit of the tornado! While in pursuit, we continued to video a funnel to our north but from our viewpoint it was hard to tell if it was on the ground or not. We followed the cop for awhile and then ended up zig zagging through ‘the woods’ where we were losing visibility and daylight. We eventually made it to a major paved road (Highway 17) and headed east. As we entered the town of New Windsor, IL, we got pelted with some very isolated 1″ hail.

We continued east on Highway 17 and eventually made it into the little town of Alpha, IL. We pulled in to the gas station there and made a quick pitstop. While we were sitting there, we experienced some small hail but nothing too impressive. I was nearing the end of my tape on the camcorder, so I decided this would be a good time to put a new one in. (good boy Stan!) We headed north a few miles on Route 150 and all of a sudden we encountered the beloved core of the storm. Pardon the pun, but we were now experiencing some hellacious hail. This stuff wasn’t isolated like the earlier event, it was raining hail. As Darin and I have done in the past with hail, we quickly found a house out in the country to take refuge at. This place happened to be some rural small church with a sign that said “Experience Jesus Today”. (lets just say I think we found him) 😉

The hail was now golfball size and was really smacking against the windows. We dove under a tree which was the only thing we could find to somewhat protect the vehicle. The event seemed to last forever, so we must have found the motherload updraft of the storm. While we were sitting there waiting out the storm, we had a huge power flash right behind us that lit up the sky bright green. For a moment there, I thought it might have been a tornado but believe it was most likely the lightning or hail causing the power to go out. (maybe that church sign was trying to tell us something) 😉 After about 7 minutes, the hail finally subsided. The truck had leaves from the tree plastered all over it, but luckily no broken/cracked windows. We decided to head back into Alpha, IL and return to the gas station we’d been at before. We had another short burst of hail while we were sitting there, but definitely wasn’t as intense or big as the stuff down the road.

Mark Sefried called Darin on the cell phone and asked if we wanted to meet up for some food. We decided that since we had a long drive back, we might as well stop chasing and have a bite to eat before we head home. As we were heading south on Route 150, we spotted yet another wall cloud to our SSE. No funnel or anything, but it was nifty to see even with it being as dark as it was. We finally met up with Mark and his brother Doug at a Hardee’s in Knoxville, IL for supper. We exchanged chase stories from the day and watched a little video from each other, so that was pretty nifty. We finally headed for home and eventually made it back to Champaign around 11:15pm.

Final thoughts:
Wow, what a chase day. It didn’t start out very promising, but turned out to be one of my personal best chase days ever! We had a little of everything today: shelf cloud, wall clouds, funnel clouds, tornado, large hail, lightning. It was just an amazing experience and I’ll remember this one for quite awhile. I think the only thing I didn’t get was a victory steak, maybe next time! 🙂

Special Thanks:
Once again, many thanks goes to Darin Kaiser for the transportation, good company, and exciting storms we always seem to find. Also want to thank Mark and Doug Sefried for an enjoyable chaser convergence after the chase. Next time we’re going for steak!

Video

Total Chase Time: 9 hours
Total Chase Miles: 413 miles

Stan Olson 2003, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments

April 16, 2003 – Chase to southwest IL

I had been watching this day on the models for awhile now and was anxious to see what would happen now that it was finally here. The early morning Day 1 (06z) outlook painted a small moderate risk area from extreme SW IL to SE MO. This was the general area I was wanting to head to, so I was pretty excited. Unfortunately the moderate risk didn’t last long as the SPC downgraded it to a slight risk, stating that the risk of severe weather didn’t warrant a moderate risk. (blah!) Dewpoints were only forecasted to be in the mid-50s, while helicity values were looking much better around 200-300. I won’t even talk about CAPE since it was nearly non-existent. 😉 The CAP from the ILX and SGF 12z soundings was pretty high, so stuff was not likely to fire up until sunset or thereafter. Despite the limited ingredients, Darin and I decided to give it a go and see what happened. Our target area was the chasing hotspot of SW IL, better known as Pinckneyville, IL. 🙂

Darin and I left my place here in Champaign at 11:00am and headed south on I-57. Not much was going on with the weather at this time, just some partly cloudy conditions and very windy. We stopped south of Salem, IL at a rest stop to take a break from the non-stop driving. Inside they had a weather monitor that showed temps, radar, and a few other things. There appeared to be a small squall line that had developed just west of us, but we had no intentions of chasing it. After grabbing a Pepsi and some Potato Skins (great chaser snack food!), we continued south on I-57. We arrived in Mt. Vernon around 1:30pm and decided to look around for a computer w/Internet access to get some weather data. After going 0 for 2 at the local Staples and Radio Shack, we explored the main drag for the town library. Once we found it, we went inside and asked about using a computer. We were very happy that all we needed was a driver’s license to use the computers.

Once online, I paused for a moment trying to think of which site to visit first. Hmmm, how about your own freakin’ website Stan, jeesh! 😉 Darin and I laughed at that as I loaded up StansWeather.Net. We looked at radar first, seeing that dinky squall line dissipating as we figured it would. Satellite loops were showing a pretty thick pack of clouds, though there was a skinny area of clearing that was something to look for anyways. I took a look at the RUC and ETA models which both continued to show a declining amount of CAPE. Surface plots were showing dew points in the low to mid-50s, though Scott AFB continued to show a 61 degree dew point for the 1pm and 2pm obs. Not wanting to go over the 60 minute daily limit just in case we had to come back through later, we decided to head west towards our originally target area of Pinckneyville, IL.

We got back on I-57 and as we were cruising along, the semi in front of us seemed to be getting close to us real quick. (no, Darin was not driving that fast!) We rapidly slowed down and somewhat veered into the shoulder to avoid hitting him, though it sounds worse than it actually was. It must have been 15 minutes of stop and go traffic on I-57, completely nuts. The construction crews were working on the right lane of traffic, so it was down to one very slow left lane of traffic. Finally, we made it through that mess and got back to highway speeds. We eventually made it to Pinckneyville around 3:45pm and again scoured the streets for a library. We finally found it and noticed it was much smaller than the one in Mt. Vernon, so we weren’t too sure if they even had computers. 😉

Once inside, we asked the lady if they had computers with Internet and sure enough they did. While I was filling out the paper work, the librarian asked me if I was over 18. I just smiled and answered “Yes”. 🙂 Although she didn’t ask for ID, this has to be a first to be carded at a library. (you’d think I was ordering an alcoholic drink or something, LOL) Anyways, we sat down and started browsing the weather data again. They must have been sharing a dialup Internet connection, because it was slow as heck. Conditions were still about the same and there still were no mesoscale discussions yet. (come on SPC, at least make up something to tell us!)

After leaving the library, we decided to head to Sparta, IL. Once again, we encountered more road construction that brought cars to a standstill again. Luckily it wasn’t as bad as the I-57 junk, so that was a relief. As we entered the town of Sparta, we must have found that skinny clearing that we saw earlier on the satellite image. Despite the amount of sunshine, the air still felt too dry. After gasing up the truck for $1.41/gallon, we headed south of town to watch the skies. We found a small vacant cemetery and sat there watching to our west. I could almost see the wind shear as the surface winds were coming from one direction and the higher clouds were going another. The winds were really strong now and it was downright cold, definitely wasn’t any tropical dew points around here. We sat there for about 50 minutes just watching and waiting, but nothing happened. Darin called fellow ILCHASE member Mark Sefried to get some sort of an update. Mark said nothing was happening and it’d be best just to head on home. Darin and I concurred with that statement and started heading back.

We headed back towards Pinckeyville and then went north on Rt.51 to avoid the construction junk on Hwy 154. Around 6:20pm as we entered the town of Tamaroa, our ILCHASE pagers went off for the first time today announcing a mesoscale discussion. (about freaking time people!) Darin called Mark back on the cell phone to see if this was going to amount to anything or not. Mark said there was a real small line of storms near St. Louis, but said it didn’t look too impressive. We decided to continue our journey home and not bother with the dinky line of storms. As we entered Vandalia, IL, our stomachs told us they needed some food. In remembrance of the mesoscale discussion for southern Illinois, we decided to eat at McD’s. 🙂 As we were eating, we looked outside and it was pouring down rain but only for a few minutes. After eating, we hopped on I-70 and headed towards Effingham. Once there, we switched to I-57 and headed back to Champaign. We arrived back at my house around 10:00pm.

Final thoughts:
This is one of those days that is frustrating but still worth the effort. Had we not chased today, I’m almost certain something would have developed which would have had us kicking ourselves over and over. It was a good practice run for the rest of the season. Besides, the next non-bust chase will feel even better after enduring this bust.

Special Thanks:
I definitely want to thank Darin for providing the transportation and enjoyable company for this chase.

Total Chase Time: 11 hours
Total Chase Miles: 432 miles

Stan Olson 2003, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments

April 4, 2003 – Chase in Champaign/Piatt County

I wasn’t really expecting too much this far north today in the way of severe weather. The early morning Day 1 outlook had southern Illinois in a moderate risk and the slight risk was just north of there. It appeared that the front was going to pass through quickly, taking all the severe weather with it to the south and east. Looking at the surface map, there was quite a temperature gradient so I knew something was up. Dewpoints were in the upper 50s and forecasted to hit the lower 60s. Convective parameters weren’t too shabby with CAPE values around 1500 and helicity around 200-250. The cap wasn’t a concern today with such a strong front, but clouds were definitely an issue. If we remained socked in with clouds, we probably wouldn’t get much severe weather. However, if we could get a few breaks it would be a different story.

During the morning, we had several little areas of storms move through the area. None were severe, but there was decent amounts of lightning. After each batch went through, the sun would seem to make another appearance. The 1630z Day 1 pushed the slight risk much further north and the moderate wasn’t too far behind. Watching satellite loops of the region, you could definitely see some destabilization occurring. A little after 11:00am, the SPC issued an MCD for central MO to IL stating that storms were expected to rapidly develop after 12:00pm. About an hour later they issued a tornado watch mainly west of I-55 in IL to central MO. Around 1:00pm, a cell had fired up east of Quincy, IL and was rapidly gaining strength. Numerous severe and tornado warnings were issued for it as it tracked across western and central IL. It appeared to take a right turn and head more east than its previous northeast direction. At 3:52pm, a tornado was reported with this cell in Clinton, IL.

Having seen enough, I decided to get the gear and head out at 4:00pm. My plans were to head to the northern part of Champaign county and intercept this cell as it made its way east. I made my way to Rt.136 and 900E, 3 miles east of Fisher, IL. Two minutes after I arrived, the weather radio went off for a tornado warning in Champaign county. Directly to my west was a pretty decent wall cloud, but it wasn’t rotating from what I could see. I was monitoring WAND-TV and they were showing their street-level radar. Ironically, they zoomed right in on the Fisher area and showed the area where there could be hail and rotation. The sky appeared to become more greenish which told me that there was a decent chance of hail. Having heard several reports of large hail in the area, I decided to bail east and south before the hail got to me. (was more concerned about damaging my antennas than the car itself!) 🙂

Since this storm had moved off to the east, I decided to head back south to Champaign and intercept more storms that were heading in my direction. I pulled into a parking lot around 5:15 and checked out WAND-TV’s radar again, noticing a line of storms to the west and south. I decided to head west on Rt.10 and go to the edge of the county. I sat there for awhile watching boring rain and some occasional lightning, but nothing too impressive at all. Once again, I flipped on WAND-TV and they were showing a nice cell near Bethany, IL. I was a tad too far north of there, but decided to head south and see if I couldn’t intercept it.

As I headed south, the lightning really picked up. There was a lot of cloud-cloud lightning and some decent cloud-ground stuff as well. I made my way just SW of Atwood, IL and pulled of Rt.36 to watch the sky and radar again. I was considering going further south, but then decided with it getting dark to just make my way back home. I took Rt.36 east to Tuscola and then headed back to Champaign on Rt.45.

Final thoughts:
There were a lot of tornado warnings but only a few that actually produced anything. (which is why spotters/chasers are needed out there) There were numerous reports of large hail though, so these storms had pretty decent updrafts. Finally, after a year long separation I got my GPS back and it sure made navigating a lot easier.

Special Thanks:
A huge round of thanks and kudos goes out to WAND-TV (17) in Decatur, IL. Their street-level doppler is simply remarkable and they break-in immediately when severe weather is lurking. Thanks guys!

Total Chase Time: 2.5 hours
Total Chase Miles: 105 miles

Stan Olson 2003, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments

March 19, 2003 – Chase in Piatt County Illinois

Despite there being a slight risk of severe weather today, I wasn’t too optimistic at the start of the day. There were tons of clouds and the temps were rather chilly. There was also a nice area of rain heading up from southern Illinois which would further stabilize the atmosphere. Not much to look forward to, or so I thought.

After picking up my paycheck from work, I ran a few errands and headed home. Not much in the way of activity in the weather department at the time. The 11:00am hazardous weather outlook from ILX even mentioned there was no threat of severe weather today. Apparently they thought the atmosphere could not destabilize given the amount of cloud cover and lower dew points.

I loaded up the radar loop from ILX and noticed a thin line of storms in western Illinois, but they didn’t look too fierce on radar. Then the moment of shock arrived when I got a notification at 1:18pm of a tornado warning for Christian and Sangamon counties. What the heck!?!? Shortly after the warning was issued, there were two reports of confirmed tornado touchdowns with the storm. Unfortunately being some 80-90 miles away, there was no way of catching up to the particular cell. However, I noticed more isolated cells to the south of here that were heading in this direction. Looking at the satellite images revealed that clouds were definitely being penetrated by the sun and that was very promising.

Around 3:00pm, I decided to pack up the gear and head out towards the now multicelluar batch of storms to the SW of here. I hopped on I-72 and headed west towards Monticello. Upon arriving at the Monticello exit, I noticed the cell that I had watched on radar directly west of me. There was a lot of scud, but nothing that seemed to be rotating at the moment. I drove through town and then headed NW of town on the Deland Monticello Road. I pulled off at 1800N and decided to take some pictures. I saw somewhat of a lowering, but it turned out to be some regular scud stuff moving around in the air. I also observed a long shelf cloud / gust front heading towards me with alot of rain and occasional lightning. The storm was moving right towards me, so I decided to hop back in the car and get out of the way. 🙂

I continued north on the Deland Monticello Road and finally pulled off just NE of De Land. At 3:55pm, situated at the intersection of 2400N/700E, the storm caught up with me. I had a brief period of heavy rain, some close lightning, and even some small pea-sized hail. After the storm passed over me, I decided to head back home to Champaign since I didn’t see anything else in the area to chase. I arrived back home at 4:45pm.

Final thoughts:
While no severe weather occurred where I chased, it was still great to get out on that first chase of the year. It’s been awhile since I’ve chased and I have a few things to adjust for the next chase. I have a good feeling about this year’s chase opportunities in central Illinois!

Total Chase Time: 1.5 hours
Total Chase Miles: 50 miles

Stan Olson 2003, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments