StansWeather.net

At the beginning of April, it seemed like spring would never get here. Our winter seemed to start in late March with quite a helping of snow across the area. However, by the third week of the month, it really warmed up. We broke numerous high temperature records during the week, which made it feel like summer instead of spring. (it’s Illinois, what else would you expect??) 🙂 Anyways, along with our upper-80 degree temps this week came some very tropical mid-60’s dew points. The SPC has had the area pasted in a slight risk of severe weather for the past 3 days now, but until tonight, we’ve missed out on them.

Today was no exception from the past few days, except that unlike the previous couple of days, we actually had a trigger to help the storms fire up. The cold front decided to push it’s way about half-way through Illinois today where it decided to stop. I initially had my doubts about any storms firing in the Champaign area due to the fact that the front seemed to be a bit further south than expected. All indications that I was getting told me that if storms were to fire, it would be later in the afternoon into the evening hours.

Around 5:30pm CDT, the SPC issued a severe thunderstorm watch for Western and Central Illinois. Ironically, the watch did not include Champaign County, but as the watch states:

“A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH MEANS CONDITIONS ARE FAVORABLE FOR SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS IN AND CLOSE TO THE WATCH AREA.”

While enjoying my nice Dominos thin-crust pizza, my weather radio went off informing me of a severe thunderstorm warning for Champaign and Douglas counties. After taking a quick peek at the radar one more time, I decided that I would head south and take a look at this little fella. As I made my way south through Champaign, the weather radio went off again stating that they had upgraded the severe thunderstorm warning to a tornado warning! (hmmm, dejavu??? same place as last Friday!) I decided to head south on Rt.45 and could definitely see this cell intensifying. As I passed through Tolono, I decided to head east to possibly stop and take some pictures of the ominous conditions. I pulled to the side of the road and flipped on my portable TV to see if anyone was showing radar. Sure enough, WAND-TV out of Decatur was showing a nice zoomed in section of this area. At this point, I realized that it would be unwise for me to attempt to punch through the north side of the cell just to get to the ‘good side’. As painful as it was, I decided to break off from this cell for a while and headed back north to come up with another plan.

I headed back north on Rt.45 and began hearing more reports of possible rotation and/or funnel clouds with the cell. I decided to head east on CR 1100N towards Philo to see if I could yet again give it another shot. Went about 3 miles east of Rt.130 and pulled over to check out the sky again. It was really dark at this point so it was hard to see much of anything. I turned around at that point and headed back to Rt.45 and in the process, I barely avoided nailing a big ol’ duck. (guess he was out storm chasing by himself too!) 🙂

Listening to reports from ESDA and ham spotters, it sounded like there was another cell to the west that was cranking up. I could definitely see the lightning to my west, so I decided to go to my favorite road and setup for some lightning shots. Around 9:00pm, I pulled off about half a mile north of CR 1000N on CR 600E. As I was shooting some still shots of the lightning, WAND-TV broke in again and zoomed in on the stuff to my west. It appeared to be losing strength which I noticed from the decrease in lightning strikes. After finishing off my roll of film, I decided to head back home and call it a night.

Final thoughts:
Well, after passing up a free ride to chase in Northern Illinois with INCHASE on Thursday, I definitely relished the ability to chase locally today. While I didn’t really see too much or get any footage, I did enjoy getting out for the first time this year to chase. I think in the future, I will just camp out on the Champaign/Douglas County line and wait for the tornado warning. 🙂 Hopefully there will be more opportunities to chase this month.

Special Thanks:
I definitely have to give a big thank you to the folks at WAND-TV in Decatur for their great weather coverage. It really makes a difference when you can see the radar when you’re out chasing. WAND-TV does a great job of breaking in and showing which cells are causing the most trouble. Keep up the great work guys!

Total Chase Time: 3 hours
Total Chase Miles: 60 miles

Well today certainly had the makings of a widespread outbreak of tornadoes and straight-line wind damage. The Day 2 outlook on Tuesday suggested that most of the activity would be in Indiana. They had placed a moderate risk over the entire state of Indiana and a sliver of Illinois. (it was 15 miles SW of Champaign!) As I looked at some of the forecast models, I had a hunch that just maybe IL would have more of a chance that this was indicating. I’d received two separate invitations to go to Indiana with other chasers, however, something told me to stay put and see what would happen right here in my neck of the woods.

When I woke up at 6:00am CDT, my first plan of action was to check the new Day 1 outlook. Not only had the threat shifted west a bit into IL, but the SPC had labeled this threat a ‘high risk’! I repeatedly pinched myself to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming. I said to myself: “Self… This is Illinois, in late October, and you’re telling me that I am in a high risk? No way!!! Way….”) I had decided at that point to make the weather my main and only focus for the remainder of the day. I flipped on TWC and was again shocked to hear them really emphasizing this ‘high risk’ and telling people to keep a very close eye out on the weather.

As I checked my e-mail, I noticed a very ominous public severe weather statement issued by the SPC. They rarely issue these, but when they do, you know something huge is probably going to take place. Around 10:00am, the first MCD was issued. It definitely sounded like things were heating up at this point. Just 45 minutes later, a second MCD was issued. I knew that a tornado watch couldn’t be too much further away from being issued. The new late morning Day 1 outlook had been released half an hour early and it definitely put more of Central IL in a high risk. Finally, at 11:28am, the SPC issued a special PDS Tornado Watch that included parts of Central and Southern IL.

I began watching radar and noticed a pretty nifty little cell just north of St. Louis moving to the northeast. This little cell decided to go severe and even prompt the NWS to issue a tornado warning for it. It continued its way NE towards the Springfield area, which prompted another tornado warning. It seemed to really gain strength once it reached the Decatur area. Spotters over there were reporting golfball-size hail and a tornado was reported on the ground SW of Decatur at 1:07pm. I flipped on our local ABC affiliate WAND-TV (17) out of Decatur and they were showing the cell on radar. They brought up their tracker mode and the arrow of that particular cell was pointing right at Champaign.

At that point, I had seen enough and decided to load up the gear. Not wanting to take any chances, I took my dad and our dog with me just in case. We headed south on Rt. 45 to the Monticello Road and went west. We heard on the spotter net that a tornado had been spotted near Cerro Gordo and was moving at a speedy 40mph to the NE. As we continued west, the sky began to get real dark and lightning was starting to pop. At 1:42pm, the weather radio went off and informed us that a tornado warning had been issued for Champaign county. A tornado had been sighted 3 miles east of Monticello and it was tracking NE at 45mph. (I found out later it had hit Monticello pretty hard, luckily no one was seriously hurt or killed)

We stopped on CR 300 E just 1/4 mile south of CR 600 N to take some pictures (1:51pm). With the amount of rain between our location and the storm, it was hard to make out many of the features. We weren’t there more than 30 seconds when the wind decided it wanted us out of there, so we complied with it and bailed. 🙂 I turned around at some farm house and headed east to get out of the way of the storm. We made another stop on CR 600 N just 1/4 mile east of CR 1200 E. (2:06pm) Once again, after standing outside for just 30 seconds or so, the wind said hello and told us to leave. 🙂 We proceeded to head east on CR 600 N and then ran across a spot that looked like a scene from the plains. I stopped again on CR 600 N, just 1/8 mile west of CR 1900 E to take more pictures. Mother nature decided to let us stick around for a few minutes this time before dropping the temperature and blowing an estimated 50-60mph winds in my face. I ran back to the car and as I was getting in, the wind almost ripped the door out of my hands which is no easy task considering the angle that we were parked at and the weight of the door.

Once again, we continued east on CR 600 N all while I encountered some really strong winds blowing tons of leaves and cornstalks across the road. Once I hit Rt.49, I jogged south a mile and then back east on CR 500 N where I decided to just stop and wait out the rest of the storm. (2:34pm) The winds were probably a sustained 40-50mph for 10 minutes or so. The temperature was dropping rapidly as the windows were starting to fog up. The wind and rain finally let up enough for me to start heading west again and eventually returning home. On the way back, I encountered some tree limbs in the road that I couldn’t drive over, so I got out and removed them from the road. (wasn’t the smartest thing to do while wearing a t-shirt and shorts, brrrrrr!) We listened to the reports of damage on the scanner and learned that the NW part of Champaign had sustained a lot of damage from an 80-85mph downburst, not a tornado. I was kind of worried that whatever it was that did the damage might have also damaged our home which is just 1.2 miles SE of the area that was hit. Luckily we returned to find just a few twigs and leaves blown against the place. Whew!

Final thoughts:
Well, I have to say I’m glad I stuck around the area to chase rather than going to Indiana. I didn’t get to see any tornadoes, but the ominous clouds and high straight-line winds were good enough for me. The town of Monticello, IL got nailed pretty hard but thankfully there were no fatalities and very few injuries. The same cannot be said, however, about some of the storms in Indiana. 🙁 It was really cool though to be able to chase right here in IL in late October. I happened to check the barometer reading from the airport just south of Champaign and we had a reading of 29.29″ at 1pm! I would love to know if it got any lower as the storms slammed the county. I will post updates and damage reports as they become available.

Special Thanks:
I have to thank all the spotter nets out there for doing a superb job today. I’d also like to commend WAND-TV (17) out of Decatur for their quick alerts and radar updates. Good heads up also by the NWS for getting the warnings out when they were needed.

Total Chase Time: 2.5 hours
Total Chase Miles: 80 miles

After glancing at the forecast models and the SPC Day 2 outlook for Saturday, it really didn’t appear likely that this area was going to receive any severe weather. However, when I woke up on Saturday morning, the new Day 1 outlook had shifted the slight risk to include most of IL. The models still didn’t look too impressive, but they are in fact just models. 🙂 Anyway, I waited around for the new Day 1 outlook to come out around 11:30am to see what the SPC thought of the situation. I was completely taken by surprise when they not only kept us in the slight risk, but had upgraded us to a moderate risk! At first I thought I was either dreaming or someone was playing a very cruel and belated April Fool’s joke on me. However, neither was the case as this was the real deal and the stage was set for severe weather right here in central IL.

As noon rolled around, the SPC issued an MCD outlining an area for a possible tornado watch. Well, just 13 minutes after the MCD was issued, a nifty tornado watch was issued for parts of Central Illinois and Western/Central Indiana. At the same time as the watch was being issued, the first tornado warning went out for Mason county. After watching the storms fire and move in this direction, I debated on which way to go. At first, I wanted to go west and intercept the one supercell as it entered Dewitt county. On the other hand, another cell had formed in McLean county and was looking to clip part of northern Champaign county. Decision time…

I loaded up the gear and headed out just after 1:00pm. As I was making my way to the gas station, my weather radio went off announcing a severe thunderstorm warning for Champaign county. After filling up the gas tank at a painful $1.77 / gallon, I headed west on Springfield Ave. which turned into Rt. 10 as I proceeded out of town. At 1:40pm as I was approaching Rt.47, my weather radio went off again to inform me that a tornado warning had replaced the severe thunderstorm warning that was issued earlier. Once again, it was decision time. Do I go after this storm to my north or do I continue heading west towards the other storm? Well, my gut feeling told me to go north, so I took a right and went north on Rt.47.

The sky continued to become more ominous as I went north. I monitored the spotter net and ESDA frequencies and no one was seeing much of anything in the way of rotation. After winding my way through Mahomet, I jogged back to Rt. 47 and continued north to Rt.136. I saw alot of low hanging scud, but never saw any rotation. I went east on Rt.136 (brings back memories of May 18, 2000!) passing through Fisher, IL and I noticed a bank sign that reported a 67 degree temperature! Brrrr! 🙂 As I was just a mile or two west of Rantoul, the sky was turning a greenish color, so I knew something was churning up there. While considering my decision on whether to take the highway or a backroad, I saw this red minivan on the side of the road with more antennas than I have. Could that be Blake Naftel from Michigan all the way down here in my neck of the woods? You betcha! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stop and finally meet him due to this storm almost right on top of the area. (sorry Blake, maybe next year!!)

I decided to avoid the highway and take Rt. 45 south back towards Champaign. The guy running net control on the spotter net said that there was another cell heading towards Champaign county. At 2:22pm, the weather radio went off again announcing another tornado warning that included Piatt and Champaign counties. I headed into Urbana on Rt.45 and hopped on I-74 and then switched to I-57 south. I got off I-57 at the Monticello/Savoy exit and proceeded west on the Monticello Road (Hwy 18). I went a few miles west and then turned north on CR 600E. (brings back memories of June 4, 1999!) I pulled off the side of the road and got out to take pictures. Once again, I wasn’t seeing any rotation but the cloud structure was really cool looking. I sat there for almost 25 minutes watching it move to my east. While I was standing there, the temperature must have dropped a good 15-20 degrees! (can you say wind chill factor!) Occasionally, I would look straight up and see clouds going one way and other clouds going the opposite way, it was very sweet. I then noticed some sort of spin-up to my east a few miles. My guess is that it was either a gustnado or just some dust getting kicked up. (was just too far away to tell for sure)

After running out of both video and 35mm film, I decided to get back in the car and replenish the supplies. As I was loading the cameras, I heard on the spotter net that another cell was heading towards Champaign county in 20-30 minutes. (yippeeee!) I headed back east on the Monticello road and then decided to go north on Rt.45. As I was turning onto Rt.45, my weather radio goes off with yet another tornado warning for Champaign county. I was also hearing on the spotter net that a tornado had been sighted near Ogden, IL, but I was well south of there at the time. I went a mile north on Rt.45 and then went east on CR 1100N. After hearing the spotter net saying the next cell would probably be in the southern part of Champaign county, I decided to head south on CR 1200E. I went 10 miles south, then went west on CR 100N, and finally went south again on CR 1150E. Just as I entered Douglas county, my weather radio went off for a tornado warning right here in Douglas county! (somehow in the right place at the right time!)

About a 1/4 mile into Douglas county I pulled off and took a few pictures. I saw an awesome shelf cloud and some dust being blown across the field to my SW. I continued heading south on CR 1150E and then the winds decided to say hello to Stan. 🙂 Dust was starting to blow across the road and while not blinding, it certainly didn’t want me here. (not exactly sure what the speeds were, but I would estimate 45-55mph) I quickly jogged east a mile on CR 1250N and stopped for a brief second to get a couple stills of this dust/rain combination. Then I jogged south and east a couple miles and finally ended up on CR 1350E. Once again, I pulled off the side of the road and took pictures from inside the car. (it was raining and lightning wasn’t too far behind me!) I noticed some scud to my east that seemed to be rotating, but I’m not sure if it was anything or not. After sitting there for 10 minutes, the wall of wind and rain caught up to me and I decided to get out of there.

I headed south on CR 1350E and then went west on CR 1050N. At this point I was driving right into the wall of rain and wind, so I wasn’t moving more than 20-25mph. As I traveled west, I heard what could have been very small hailstones hit the side of my car, but it didn’t last very long and could just have been the rain pelting the car. At this point the spotter net was winding down and telling everyone to stand down and go home, so that’s what I decided to do too. I headed back north on Rt. 45 just north of Tuscola, IL. Ran through a bunch of rain on my way back to Champaign, but it slowly dissipated as I went north. I arrived back home in Champaign at 4:40pm.

Final thoughts:
This was one of those days where everything came together. I was impressed at how fast everything happened as I’m usually waiting and waiting for stuff to fire. Not only did this stuff fire, but it happened in the early afternoon. (that’s rare around here!!) Excluding my plains chase, this has probably been my best chase of the year. (so far! *grin*) This once again proves that the season doesn’t end on June 30th. It was also really ironic that I was able to chase on the same roads in one day that I previously chased on 2 different days. (June 4, 1999 and May 18, 2000) At least I had my camcorder working this time, where as the ’99 chase my older camcorder died and the ’00 chase I wasn’t able to pan over and get the tornado on film! Only took me 2 years, but at least I had it rolling this time! 🙂

While I didn’t come across any tornado touchdowns, I still had an awesome chase day. I’m still amazed at how I managed to avoid the large hail despite there being numerous reports of large hail all around me. Click here for a listing of all the severe weather reports from Central IL. The NWS at Lincoln has also published a damage assessment from these storms which is quite interesting.

Special Thanks:
I’d like to thank mother nature for coming through with a great system in August! My thanks also goes out to the SPC for their quick action in issuing the MCD and Tornado Watch. Finally, I’d like to thank the spotter net and ESDA people for being ready for this round of severe weather. Keep up the great work!! 🙂

Total Chase Time: 3.5 hours
Total Chase Miles: 125 miles

Today far exceeded yesterday’s miserable conditions. Heat indices throughout IL pushed into the 110’s which made it very uncomfortable and dangerous. I still wasn’t expecting much relief in the way of thunderstorms today, but I figured with the atmosphere as ripe as it was, maybe something would fire. I flipped on radar in the afternoon and noticed a line of showers and thunderstorms making its way across the area. The storms at the time weren’t very strong, but it was still early and I thought that maybe something would happen later. Around 4:00pm, several warnings were issued for Central IL. There were several outflow boundaries across the area and they were starting to clash with each other which was helping to fuel the fire. I debated on whether or not to go west and try to intercept these storms. After watching them on radar, it sort of looked like they were weakening a bit. I decided to stick around and see what happened as they moved closer to home.

I noticed when looking at the radar that there was an outflow boundary in Piatt county that was moving east. This line of storms that had caused all the warnings had also created an outflow boundary which was moving SE. I kept my eye on the Piatt county area waiting for some storms to fire. I did a quick check of estimated CAPE values and they were well into the 5000’s in this area, so I knew if something got going it might really get going. Just before 6:00pm, some storms were starting to fire right on that boundary in Piatt county. (yes!!) Not having anything else better to do, I loaded up the gear and headed south. As I came into the Savoy area, I saw multiple wanna-be funnel clouds. (scud) Then I heard on the scanner that someone reported a funnel cloud in the same area I was in, so I knew what it was. I headed east on Church road in Savoy. I found a very decent spot to view the storm at, so I pulled off the road and took some pictures. The lightning was beginning to get it’s act together and the wind was picking up. The temperature and dew point had dropped tremendously which was quite a relief to me. At 6:13pm, NWS issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Piatt and Champaign counties, so I knew this puppy was gaining strength. As the storm approached my location, I decided to head south on CR 1350E.

I continued jogging east and south until I once again encountered Rt. 36 and Rt. 49. At 7:10pm, I went about a mile south of this intersection and pulled off the road. I was about half a mile from this funnel-shaped scud cloud and it appeared to be rotating. I took some video of it for a few minutes and then proceeded south on 49. My main concern at this point was gas. I was about 2 notches above empty and I sure didn’t want to get stuck in the middle of a storm without gas. I continued south on 49 looking for a gas station, but didn’t see any. I decided to head east towards Paris on Rt. 133. As I entered Paris, I saw a gas station. (woo-hoo) As I pulled up to the pump, there was a sticker that said “10% ethanol”. (argh) My car doesn’t like that stuff, so I proceeded east into town and found a Shell station. I filled the tank up and then headed back west on 133. At this point the sky to my west was pitch black and the lightning was getting very vivid.

Not wanting to drive right into it, I headed WSW on Rt. 16 towards Charleston. (wasn’t I just here yesterday??) The lightning now was becoming very frequent and I noticed it getting closer and closer. Just as I entered the town of Kansas, it cut loose with the rain. I had my wipers on the high setting, brights were on and I still couldn’t see. I got about 5 miles east of Charleston and the lightning got real close. I’d never seen it so vivid in my life as I did at this time. Through all the lightning crashes and heavy rain, I heard something beep. I looked over at my camcorder and it had run out of tape!! Unfortunately, this was my last tape so I would have to continue through the lightning field without a record of it. I made up my mind that if I made it into Charleston, I was going to buy some tapes. I entered Charleston around 8:15 and saw a Wal-Mart. Just as I turned into the parking lot, KABAM! A lightning bolt had it just down the street and apparently it took out the power to the store.

I waited the storm out in the parking lot for about 20 minutes. During this time, I got on the HT and talked to N9PLB (Tom) on the local repeater. I told him that Charleston was getting slammed with lightning and heavy rain. It finally let up and I tried to go in the store, but they still didn’t have any power. (argh!!) I had to have some video tape, so I headed west through Charleston and into Mattoon. Not wanting to battle the Wal-Mart superstore traffic, I went to K-Mart and found my tapes. (yay!) There was quite a lightning show now to my SE, but for the life of me, I could not find a decent location to take pictures at due to the darn corn. I finally decided to give that idea up and went to visit my aunt/uncle who lived just a few miles away.

After enjoying some homemade cookies and ice cream with them, I headed back home a little after 11:00pm. On my way home, I saw a little lightning to my NW, but nothing too spectacular. I started flipping around on the radio and was picking up some repeaters that I hadn’t heard before. I pulled up the Indy repeater and was able to key it up on 5 watts, not too shabby. I then ran across a repeater in the Bloomington, IL area that had some traffic on it. I recognized a voice on there and sure enough, it was Keenan from ILCHASE. I talked to him for a little while as I made my way into Champaign. I finally made it home around 12:20pm.

Final thoughts:
Wow is all I can say! I wasn’t really expecting much out of these storms, but they sure packed a punch. The Champaign/Urbana area had numerous reports of power lines down, trees down, and lots of damage due to the straight-line winds. There were a lot of 60mph wind gusts reported with these storms which really surprised me. The lightning I encountered was definitely the most intense I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ll definitely make sure to keep extra video tapes on hand for the next time! 🙂

Special Thanks:
I’d like to thank the weather gods for letting me chase for the 2nd straight day in a row! If I get to chase tomorrow, I’ll feel like I’m in Kansas again! 🙂

Total Chase Time: 4 hours
Total Chase Miles: 175 miles

One word to describe today: nasty. The humidity was downright off the charts and even with the A/C on, there wasn’t much relief. There wasn’t much expected in the way of showers and thunderstorms which didn’t help matters either. However, around 12:30pm, a little thunderstorm popped up just south of Champaign. Rather than sweating to death inside, I decided to get in my A/C-lacking vehicle and go check it out. As I got closer to this little cell, the air became a little more reasonable to be around. Unfortunately, this little cell fizzled out and didn’t really do much but cool it off where I was. I saw some more towers to my east, so like a couple other chases this month, I went east on Rt.36. I eventually encountered some rain and a few lightning strikes, but this storm also fizzled out.

Not wanting to go immediately home, I continued east on 36 into Indiana until I encountered a weird detour that sent me to Hwy 63. I decided to go south a little ways until I realized there wasn’t much going on. I headed back west into IL and came into Paris, IL. (I have never seen so many one way streets in my life) After getting lost in Paris for a while and temporarily going the wrong way down a one-way street, I found Rt. 16 and headed west towards Charleston. After a quick drive-by my now Alma Matter, I headed back to Champaign on I-57. I got back home around 4:30pm and figured the chase day was over.

After watching a very interesting Weakest Link which featured some of the Survivor castaways, I flipped on radar and noticed a decent line of storms to my NE. My email program then notified me of a severe thunderstorm warning for Iroquois county (which is the county directly NE of Champaign) Not wanting to miss out on some decent lightning, I decided to give it a shot. I headed north on I-57 and noticed just how hazy it was. As I proceeded north, I wasn’t seeing too much in the way of lightning or cloud structure due to the haze. Once I got past Rantoul, it definitely started to get interesting. At 8:15pm, I got off at the Paxton exit and proceeded east to Rt. 9. I was finally starting to see some lightning to my ENE which got me going. The weather radio wasn’t impressing me when it said the warning had expired and no new warnings had been issued. I still continued to go east until I reached Rankin. It now looked like the storm was getting much closer to me, so I decided to head south on Hwy 49.

I approached the Hwy 49/Rt. 136 intersection and noticed the lightning really increase in intensity and frequency, yet I continued south. This storm was definitely moving faster than I thought and was closing in fast, so I turned around and headed back towards Rt 136. I then headed west on 136 towards Rantoul, all while the lightning kept closing in behind me. As I entered Rantoul, it appeared like I’d finally gotten ahead of the storm, so maybe I could finally stop and take a few pictures. I got on the 442.250 repeater in Decatur and got a hold of KB9ZDM who told me that there was just a little cell in NE Champaign county. (I figured that was the one that had been chasing me)

I kept going west on 136 through Rantoul and eventually turned north on CR 1200 E. I went a couple of miles and was about to setup for a few shots when it started pouring. (you could see that one coming!) I headed back south on that road and that’s when my tape ran out. So I sat at the intersection of 136 and 1200E changing tapes when BAM, a strike hits just a few miles behind me. (here we go again) Once I got the new tape loaded, I headed back east on 136 and then jumped south on I-57 and headed back home. After a few minutes of heavy rain, I finally got away from the storm. It started dying at this point, so I just called it and went home. I arrived home at 9:45 and I could finally say the chase day was over!

Final thoughts:
Well, chasing twice in one day was pretty interesting. The storms in the evening were alot better than the dinky ones during the afternoon. I’d never chased up in that area before, so it was kinda nifty to be up there. (the terrain wasn’t too shabby either) At least the storms brought a little relief to the areas that they affected.

Special Thanks:
Once again, thanks to the weather gods for bringing some cool stuff to the area. (well, maybe ‘cool’ isn’t the right word to use)

Total Chase Time: 2 hours
Total Chase Miles: 90 miles