StansWeather.net

Looking at the US Threats Assessments page last week, it appeared that this week could potentially produce some severe weather in this neck of the woods. The morning Day 1 outlook was showing a slight risk of severe weather in W. IL, but at that time it didn’t appear to reach into Central IL. The models were forecasting very unstable conditions, however, across the state. I knew if something could fire it would probably go severe.

At 1:38pm, an MCD was issued that included West Central IL. This peaked my curiosity and when I loaded up radar, there were already some storms firing up in that area. 20 minutes later they issued a severe thunderstorm watch for that same area and even a bit further to include the counties due west of me. After watching the storms on radar for a while to see what they were doing, I decided to make a go of it and see if I could intercept them. I picked out Springfield, IL as my target area, loaded up the gear and headed out at 3:00pm. I proceeded west on I-72 which would take me right to Springfield with no problems.

As I headed into the Decatur area, I called George (N9IPO) to find out a weather update. He was mobile at the time, but another ham jumped in who had access to radar and informed me that the storms were still strong and heading SE. I continued on I-72 towards Springfield and noticed it getting darker to my west. I flipped on the weather radio for updates and the current conditions came on and really shocked me. Temp: 92, Dew point: 77, Heat Index: 105! Yowsers!

I entered into Springfield around 4:15pm. Skies were still dark but I couldn’t make out any features due to the haze. I decided to hop on HW 97 and go north of town. (not the smartest idea given the time of day) As I made my way through traffic, I finally made it north of town. As I came up to a hill, the skies became greenish-gray and I knew something was gonna cut loose. Realizing I was going north and the storms were heading south, I decided to head east to get away from the storms. I saw somewhat of a lowering, but due to the trees, corn, and traffic, I couldn’t confirm if it was a wall cloud or just some scud. (couldn’t get any pictures either!)

I finally found a spot where I thought I was gonna be safe for a few minutes to get pictures, but then I noticed the lightning just a few miles away. Darn! I took a quick glance at the GPS and found a south road that would take me back to HW 97. The lightning seemed to be increasing and getting closer to me which made me feel like I was being chased. When I made it back to HW 97, I decided not to get on that road and continue going south. I kept going south and eventually got on Old Jacksonville Rd. which took me east into Springfield. As I came back into Springfield, it really got ugly. The weather radio went off announcing a severe thunderstorm warning for Sangamon county, exactly where I was. (hey, at least I was in the right spot this time!) *grin*

Around 5:15pm, it cut loose. Very heavy rainfall reduced visability to almost nothing and the lightning was popping all around. As I was waiting for one of the lights to turn green, I saw a flash of lightning hit something on the right side of the street just up the road. (when I say just up the road, I’m talking like one block if that) It was an instantaneous flash/boom which was quite exhilarating and scary at the same time. At this point, I unplugged some of my gear that had external antennas because this stuff was just too close for my comfort.

The lightning apparently took out some power because numerous stoplights were now flashing red which backed up traffic. (so much for ‘rush’ hour) I slowly proceeded south on RT 4 trying to get back to I-72. While I was waiting, I could see some lightning off to my east. I finally made my way back on I-72 around 5:45pm and headed east towards Decatur. I got ahold of George again and told him of my storm encounter. He stopped me for a minute and told me he was getting out of his vehicle to take pictures of some mammatus clouds. (he always finds mammatus) Not to be left out, I looked around me and by golly, there were the mammatus. I hopped off at the Mechanicsburg exit and pulled off on a really crappy dirt road (with puddles) and took some stills and video of these mammatus. I also saw some cloud to cloud lightning but it was very sparse and not too spectacular. (still nifty though)

Since all the storms were well south of the area and nothing building to the west, I decided to find something to eat. I gave George another call on the radio and asked him if he wanted to meet up at Steak and Shake for a snack. He too was hungry, so he agreed to meet me at the SnS. Another ham, Jason (KB9URM) jumped in there and informed us that he was hungry, so he met us there too. He beat both of us there and even called us on the radio asking us what we wanted to drink, how’s that for utilizing the power of ham radio! 😛

After we finished eating, I decided to head back home. There were a few towers to our NE, but they didn’t amount to anything. As I came back into Champaign, the sky was a very orange/gray color. I finally pulled into the driveway at 8:30pm.

Final thoughts:
While I didn’t get to take as many pictures as I wanted, I still considered this a very decent chase. The intense lightning and the long-lived mammatus clouds was good enough for my needs. I will have to figure out a way to get around some of these construction areas in the future as the past couple of chases have been hampered by them.

Special Thanks:
I’d like to thank George and all of the hams in the Decatur area who provided me with enjoyable conversation and radar updates. Also, many thanks to George and Jason for meeting me at SnS for the victory steak, steakburger that is. (hey, it’s good stuff and cheaper than a regular steak!) 🙂

Total Chase Time: 5 hours
Total Chase Miles: 215 miles

While some people considered the chase season to end in the month of June, I felt that it was just starting to fire up. Looking at the morning Day 1 outlook revealed most of IL under a slight risk. After looking at the models, I felt that it was a very slight chance of anything severe firing. I waited around for the 16:30z Day 1 outlook to come out before I made any plans. Sure enough, they had moved the slight risk to include just a sliver of eastern IL. It still included the central and southern parts of IN, which meant that I would still probably chase. Just around noon, Rob Stout (INCHASE) popped online and I asked him if he wanted to chase or at least nowcast for me. I told him I would head towards the Terre Haute area and go from there.

I departed Champaign at 12:30pm and headed south on Rt.45 to Tuscola. From there, I proceeded east on Rt. 36 towards Indiana. Around 1:45pm as I was heading through the little town of Hume, IL., I noticed a few lightning strikes to my ESE. Just after this, I talked to Tom (N9PLB) and Dale (W9JY) on the 444.925 repeater in Mattoon. I informed them that I was heading towards the Terre Haute area to chase some storms. From Mattoon, they told me that it looked real ominous to their NE, which is what I was seeing to my ESE. The repeater started getting weaker, so I said goodbye and continued east on 36 into Indiana. (found out that it was only putting out 5 watts of power, which is quite amazing seeing how far I was from the repeater!)

Around 2:30pm, I received a call on the cell phone from Rob informing me that these storms weren’t doing anything and didn’t look to intensify. I had a feeling that this would happen, but I continued to chase anyways. I asked Rob since I was somewhat in his area if he wanted me to stop by for a little while. He said ‘come on over’, so I got directions and headed that way. I arrived at his house around 3:30pm and determined from looking at radar that he was right in that the storms were all moving south and didn’t look to reach severe levels. Rob dug out one of his chase videos that he had (one of Warren Faidley’s tapes) and we watched that to pass some time. When that was over, we noticed this horse race on TV. The reason I point this out is because one of the horses was named “Arizona Storm”. (I know, we’re crazy!) I’m not sure if it was that horse or another one, but one of them had 99-1 odds of winning, which we both couldn’t believe. After that was over, we went outside and I showed Rob some of my gadgets and radios. In an attempt to demonstrate ham radio, I punched in the 146.970 repeater out of Indianapolis and called Chad (KB9WXQ). Of course, he didn’t respond so it didn’t do too well for demonstrating it to Rob, but I think he got the idea! 🙂

While we were outside, Rob’s 4 kids came out and started playing catch. Not wanting to feel left out, I dug out my old baseball glove in the back of the car and got in on the action. We played for quite awhile and I can’t remember how many times they hit the side of my van with the ball. (thank goodness we were using a tennis ball!) After that was over with, Rob wanted to know if I would stay for dinner. Having heard how much this man loves to cook, I wasn’t about to pass this up. 🙂 Noticing they were out of a few ingredients, Rob and I decided to run into town and pick up the goods. I took my HT with me hoping to hit the Indy repeater again, but I being 50 miles away from Indy and without an external antenna, I just couldn’t do. (I just don’t have the power, captain!!!)

We got back to the house around 9:00pm and he started cooking the yummies. During this time, we decided to watch “The Nutty Professor”. That movie had everyone crying from laughing so much, totally hilarious movie. Then we decided to watch the sequel, which was equally if not more hilarious than the first one. During the 2nd movie, we started chowing down on some awesome food. We had big baked potatoes, salad, and yes, STEAK! (sorry Aunt Meg, but no eggs this time!) 🙂 Rob’s reputation as a cook definitely panned out (no pun intended) as the food was fabulous. His oldest daughter decided to bake us some brownies for dessert, which were very good.

After the second movie was over, I decided that I’d better start heading back home. After saying my goodbyes, I left his house around 2:00am. I took the same route back home except instead of Rt.45, I took I-57 to get home just a bit quicker. I pulled in my driveway at 4:30am. *yawn*

Final thoughts:
Well, despite the weather busting on me, I had a heck of a time. After talking to Rob online and several times on the phone, it was great to finally meet him.

Special Thanks:
Huge thanks goes out to Rob and his family for being such gracious hosts! Good food, good company, lots of fun. Every chaser should have a friend like Rob! You da man Rob! 🙂

Total Chase Time: 16 hours
Total Chase Miles: 260 miles

After being teased by numerous systems over the past few weeks, it finally appeared that central IL would get some severe weather today. The Day 1 outlook was showing a slight risk for central and southern IL, which was a good sign. We started out with mostly sunny skies for much of the morning, with a few wispy cirrus clouds to the west. I started noticing some small cumulus showing up on the satellite map all across IL so I knew something was in the works. At 1:04pm, the SPC issued an MCD regarding possible initiation of storms in the next few hours. This really got me going and I decided to go get the vehicle ready just in case.

After a few hours of waiting, not much was going on. There was little dinky cell over by Danville, but it wasn’t anywhere close to severe. Around 4:30pm, storms slowly started firing across central IL. Once again, they weren’t severe, but they did show some promise. Finally, at 5:13pm, my nifty weather radio went off announcing a severe thunderstorm warning for Vermilion and Edgar county in IL. (these are the counties that are directly to my east and southeast respectively.) Radar was showing some decent cells over there, but at the time, I wasn’t wanting to intercept the storms from the west and north. Well, at 6:17, the trusty weather radio went off again informing me of another severe thunderstorm warning, this time for Douglas and Champaign county (where I am located). That was enough for me as I wasn’t going to wait for it to get any closer to me.

I loaded up the gear and departed at 6:30pm. As I was leaving, I got a call on the cell phone from my good ol’ chase buddy Darin. (I had just turned my cell phone on too!!) He told me that he was also en route to these storms and hopefully we would meet up somewhere. (though that never happened) I headed south on RT. 45 and passed through the town of Pesotum. Just south of town, I noticed this nifty little rainbow in front of me. After taking a few pictures, I proceeded south to Tuscola where I then intersected Rt. 36 and went east. This rainbow was still very visible and getting even brighter as I continued to approach it. I decided to hop off 36 just east of Camargo so I could find a decent non-traffic area to snap some more pics of this rainbow. (1150N/1875E) After taking both video and stills of this rainbow and other cloud structures, I headed back south to Rt. 36 to continue my eastward journey.

As I entered the town of Chrisman, IL, I could tell I was getting much closer to these storms. I wasn’t sure if I should continue east or go south a bit and then jog back east. That decision was made for me when about a mile east of Chrisman. I saw some lightning that I was a lot closer to than I should have been. 🙂 Anyways, I turned around and headed south on Rt. 150. I continued south on 150 till I decided I needed to go east again. I found the Horace Brocton Rd (what happened to short little county road numbers??!) and went east. After going a couple miles on this road, I decided I still needed to go south a bit, so I hopped on some unmarked county road and took a 5 mile jog south. I eventually made my way to Hwy 163 which led me into Indiana. (yes, this is my first chase into Indiana) I took 163 until it split into Rt. 41 N/S.

I decided to take the north option and attempt to catch up with the storms. I could occasionally see some CC lightning which brought back memories of the lightning from the plains chase. (not nearly as spectacular though) As I proceeded on Rt. 41, it appeared as if I was heading into a giant forest. I’ve never seen so many darned trees in my life! Along with the tree issue, the road was constantly winding one way or another, so it felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere! As I was taking this little ‘walk in the woods’, I started tuning around on the ham rig looking for spotter networks. I started receiving the statewide weather net out of Indianapolis on 146.970. (it was coming in pretty well for where I was too) Despite being able to listen in to the net, I wasn’t hearing many severe weather reports at the time. I finally made it out of the woods and intersected I-74 and headed back to Champaign. After stopping for a quick snack at McD’s, I arrived home around 10:30pm.

Final thoughts:
Well, despite the late start at chasing, I didn’t do too shabby. I would have liked to have gotten some lightning shots, but the rainbow and sunset will do me just fine. The video capture, despite it being nifty, doesn’t do the rainbow justice. I hope the still shots bring out more of the vibrant colors of this long-lived rainbow! (yes, I chased a rainbow from Illinois to Indiana!!)

Special Thanks:
I’d once again like to thank my chasemobile for surviving another chase this year. Maybe we’ll get him some oil and a little more air to make him feel appreciated! 😛

Total Chase Time: 4 hours
Total Chase Miles: 185 miles

Before this little adventure, I had never set foot outside IL in a chasing capacity. An opportunity to chase in the plains had presented itself to me and I was definitely not going to pass it up. (plus I needed a vacation anyways!) Darin Kaiser, a chaser from Clinton, IL, sent me an email informing me that he would be off work this week and that he was interested in chasing if there was something to be chased. I somewhat jokingly told him that the moderate risk out in KS/OK looked good and that we should go for it. When he emailed me back and asked me when I wanted to leave, I was quite shocked and excited at the same time. I rushed to get all the resources I could for chasing since I would be in a new area. Not having a laptop, I loaded everything I could into my Palm Pilot. This took me alot longer than I thought which kept me from getting to bed till 1:30.

Day 1: Sunday (June 3)
Target Area: Wichita, KS
After waking up at a bright and early 5am, I checked some data and everything still looked good in Kansas. I received a call from Darin at 6am asking me if it was still a go, which I happily said yes. After loading up all my gear into his car, we hit the road a little after 7am. After starting off in completely cloudless skies in IL, things started to change once we got into Missouri. The overnight MCS had moved into Missouri which was providing us with a very wet and tiring drive across the show-me state. Our plan was to head into Kansas City and then go from there, but after receiving a call from Scott Kampas, we decided we’d better start heading south. We hopped south on RT 7 and then jogged west to Ottawa, KS on HW 68. Once we got to Ottawa, we decided to head SW to Wichita, KS on I-35. Rather than going to the downtown area, we went just south to the town of Derby, KS. After chowing down on some DQ food and waving at the human ice cream cone in front of the building, we headed west. (I apologize for the lack of detailed road info, my GPS ran out of memory and I lost all of my track log!!)

I believe we were somewhere on RT 40 between the Sedgwich and Kingman county lines. We hadn’t seen any chasers until all of a sudden we saw about 4 or 5 cars parked on a county road. We kept going and noticed another 4 or 5 on the next road, and then another 4 on the next one. We finally pulled off on one of the country roads and talked to some of these chasers. One guy looked very familiar, and since I’ve never been out there before, I figured I’d seen him on TV somewhere. Darin rolled down the window and asked him who he was. He replied “Piotrowski”. Yes, of all the people, we ran into the famous Jeff Piotrowski! Also on that road was Tornado Safari Chase Tours, led by Stephen Levine. We talked to him and his one tour member (Angelina) for quite awhile. All the other chasers decided that this was a bust and left the area, while we stayed and continued talking to Stephen and Angelina. While we were talking, I heard this noise coming from our vehicle. *light bulb* It was my weather radio, which up till that point, hadn’t even been able to pick up much of a signal. I ran and brought it out so everyone could hear it. It happened to be a severe thunderstorm warning for Kingman and N. Harper county, which was just about where we were. *yippeeeeeeeee!*

We said goodbye to Stephen and Angelina and headed SW on 42 into Kingman county. Shortly after we left, the weather radio went off again, this time a tornado warning for the same county. Darin and I are getting really pumped now and we finally started to see some lightning. Scott called me on the cell phone and told me how rapidly this storm had developed, so I knew it was a good one. We followed this storm for the next 2-3 hours as it slowly moved across the area. We saw several lowerings throughout its life cycle and Darin says he has video of a touchdown. (my video didn’t come out at all!) There were reports of a touchdown with this cell, so had it been daylight, I’m sure we would have gotten better video. We eventually encountered some more chasers / TV crews who were following this storm at night. It finally died out and with nothing else in our immediate area, we decided to call it a night. We headed back into Wichita and stayed at a Quality Inn. (once again backing my claim that I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night) 🙂

Day 2: Monday (June 4)
Target Area: Topeka/Kansas City area
After eating some breakfast and checking out TWC, we decided to find a library. Being in Wichita, we decided to find ‘Main St.’ and hopefully we would find a library. Sure enough, we found the main public library which was quite a nice library. We told the people at the desk that we were from out of state and wanted to use the computers. I was shocked to find out that we didn’t have to pay a dime to get a library card! (kudos to Wichita!!!) I got online and loaded up the Day 1 and other weather data. The best spot looked to be Eastern KS and Western MO. After checking some email, we went back to the hotel and checked out. We decided to head NE on I-35 towards the Kansas City area. Darin thought it would be good to get off at Topeka and see what was going on with the weather. It was rather cloudy and cold in Topeka, so I called Rob Stout from INCHASE for a weather update. He informed me that the SPC had issued an MCD stating that South Central KS had a much better shot of severe weather than where we were. We hopped back on I-35 and proceeded SW towards Wichita.

On our way back, we started seeing some towers going up, so we figured we better get off the turnpike! (“maybe we should get off this road”) 🙂 We ended up in Harper county where there happened to be a severe thunderstorm warning. When we got closer to the storm, we started getting some small pea-size hail. Then we started to notice louder clunks on the car as we got closer. Darin pointed out the window and I noticed the hail splashing in the field! (which is great on video!) I did jump out and grab one of the big hailstones and sure enough, it was golfball-sized. We encountered a group of meteorology students who were also inspecting the hail and the skies. We also talked to one of the local county officers who was very nice to us. While we were sitting there, we saw the DOW truck go by and 2 other radar trucks from the Univ. of Massachusettes. Being typical chasers, we decided to follow them and see which storm they were targeting. We ended up about 10 miles west of Wellington, KS on US 160. There we encountered what appeared to be another chase tour and 2 DOW trucks.

The view was quite astonishing and just couldn’t be captured on video. Mammatus clouds directly over head, a storm brewing to our west and one dying to our east. A couple of chasers from KZSN (102.1 FM) pulled up next to us. Like the other chasers we had met the day before, they were also very friendly. We watched the storm to our west which appeared to be strengthening. All of a sudden, a severe thunderstorm warning went out for that cell that we were watching. (how lucky can we be!!) The lightning was starting to increase from the cell, so I took some video for a little while. The KZSN guys decided to head back and get some food while we stayed and watched the storm for a little while longer. Almost out of gas, Darin decided that we’d better go into town and find some so we wouldn’t be stranded in the middle of nowhere during a severe thunderstorm. 🙂 The severe weather seemed to be dying, so we just decided to head back into Wichita and call it a night.

Day 3: Tuesday (June 5)
Target Area: Woodward, OK
After watching some TWC in the morning and visiting the Wichita Public Library again, we decided that a good target area would be Woodward, OK. We decided, however, to make a pit stop in Wakita, OK. (it just wouldn’t be right if we didn’t stop and check out this little town!) As we entered town, we saw a bunch of tourists taking pictures and going through the ‘twister museum’. When we turned the corner, there was a DOW truck sitting there. (hmmm, this is interesting we thought) We decided to continue going west towards are target area, but as we left, there was this nice red Dodge Ram that made us both laugh. (I wonder what kind of special discount that guy got on it!) Anyways, we decided to head towards the town of Enid, OK to check on weather data. We found the library which didn’t even require us to have a library card in order to use the computers! By habit, I loaded up my weather page and clicked on the local radar and noticed that Central IL was about to get slammed! (darn, here I am in Oklahoma wishing I was back home!!) I finally loaded up the latest info for our area and noticed that we still needed to head towards Woodward.

As we were heading west on US 60, we saw some towers going up to our north. We decided to head towards these towers and hoping that we weren’t blowing our chances by changing target areas. The storm we did encounter never did go severe, though it did look like it had a wall cloud with it. Anyways, we ended up near Medicine Lodge, KS. (yes, we went quite a bit further north!) Just around 7:00pm, we heard a tornado warning go out for Woodward county in Oklahoma! *DOH!!!* We decided to head back that way and hopefully intercept something, but we were quite far from there. On the way down there, we heard another tornado warning, this time for Woods county, which is just east of Woodward county. A few minutes later, another tornado warning gets issued for Major county, which is south of Woods county. (should of stuck with the target area!!) Anyways, we finally made it back down there and ended up punching through alot of heavy rain. We finally ended up in Custer County and that’s when the fun began.

We watched this cell continue to grow into a line of storms and the lightning from this was totally awesome. (DUDE!) 🙂 It started raining so we decided to move away from the line so we could get some good shots of this lightning. I had never seen such intense and continuous lightning until that night, wow was it awesome! 🙂 CGs, CCs, anvil crawlers, it was great. I finally tried some still shots with my SLR camera, hopefully they will turn out. Anyways, after watching this storm system, we realized that it was moving towards us! They issued a severe thunderstorm warning for our county and then we realized we were about 4 miles from the storm. Just as we were entering Clinton, OK, that’s when all heck broke lose! Very heavy rain, winds, and intense lightning. Unfortunately, I realized that I had run both batteries down on my camcorder and Darin only had about 10 min left on his. We decided to call it a night and look around for a hotel. We headed east on I-40 and came into Weatherford, OK. We were both starving, so at 1:30 in the morning, we went into the only open restaurant in town. We both ordered breakfast, which wasn’t too bad, but a bit too greasy for me. There were a few chasers at the restaurant, but not sure who they were. (I think their plates were from NJ) Anyways, we left the restaurant (rather abruptly as Darin ran over the curb) and found a Days Inn. The guy at the counter was hilarious, and even gave us $10 off the room because it was so late. After watching a little TV, we finally hit the sack around 2:30 – 3:00 in the morning. *yawn*

Day 4: Wednesday (June 6)
Target Area: Champaign, IL
With the severe weather threat shifting to the northern plains, we decided to head for home. We did encounter some towers in Missouri, but they kept fizzling out before they could get organized. Anyways, we finally pulled in my driveway at 11:30pm!

Final thoughts:
All I can say is wow! 3 days of severe weather in a row, you just can’t beat that. While I didn’t see any wedge tornadoes, I was very satisfied with the wall clouds, mammatus, rainbow, golfball-size hail, and spectacular lightning. It was a great experience and I can’t wait to do it again. It was really spooky on how decent our target areas were on all three days. (not bad for a computer geek like me!) I learned alot from the trip and hope to use my experience on future chases. The weather radio coverage was, well, it sucked. The cell phone coverage was just as bad which made getting updates really frustrating. It was also cool to meet some really nice people out in KS/OK. (except for the 2 Oklahoma girls who flipped us off) If any chasers out there ever have a need to chase in IL, I will welcome them with the same hospitality as they showed me. (group hug!) 🙂

Special Thanks:
Well, a HUGE thanks goes out to Darin. Without him, this trip would not have been possible. I’d also like to thank Scott Kampas and Rob Stout for periodically nowcasting for us. Next time I get some $$$, steak is on me guys! 🙂

Total Chase Time: 4 days
Total Chase Miles: 2700 miles

After being in a slight risk for the past several days and having nothing happen, I wasn’t too optimistic about today’s chances. The cap had been so strong that nothing was able to get going. However, in the early morning Area Forecast Discussion out of Lincoln (ILX), they were mentioning the cap being weaker today. That definitely gave me some hope that storms would develop in the area. There definitely wasn’t any problem with daytime heating as the sky was clear and blue. Dew points were in the mid 60s and temps reached up into the 90s across IL. (95 in Champaign) The data from the 12z ILX sounding was showing some decent helicity/wind shear values, but the models were forecasting that to decrease throughout the day which greatly reduced the tornado threat. Regardless, I was still excited at the possibility of storms forming.

By mid-afternoon, nothing was happening in IL. All the activity was way over in Indiana. The 20z Day 1 outlook still had us in a slight risk, so I knew something had to be brewing. Looking at visible satellite data confirmed that the cap was trying to break due to the small cumulus clouds that had started stretching across Illinois and Indiana. At 2:40pm, the SPC issued an MCD for parts of IL/IN to point out a possible area for a weather watch. About 25 minutes later, my weather radio goes off informing me of a severe thunderstorm watch till 8pm. At this point, I’m really started to get anxious about storms firing. So around 4pm, storms started to fire up just north of Terre Haute, Indiana. It appeared as if they would fire along the line of cumulus that stretched into IL, but that wasn’t to be the case. The storms near Terre Haute were not moving much at all and they were dropping very heavy rains in that area.

I had been chatting with Rob Stout from INCHASE all afternoon. He was telling me that he could see these storms from his location, which is about 50 miles ESE of Terre Haute. I looked out my window towards the ESE and sure enough I could see towers building in that direction. We both continued to watch this storm churn over the same area for quite awhile. Another batch of storms had also formed near Lafayette and were moving SSE. Around 6:50, I decided to go out in the backyard and see if I could snap a few pictures of these incredible cells from my location in Champaign. There were just too many buildings/trees to really get a good look at these things, so I decided to go out and see if I could get a better shot. I loaded up all my gear and headed east on I-74. I got off at the St. Joesph exit and proceeded to drive out into the country to get an unobstructed view of these towers.

When I found a good clear spot, I pulled over and started taking pictures. This was the first time I’d even used my new SLR camera, so I definitely wanted to get some shots for some experience. After using just about the whole roll of film, I put the still camera away and got out the camcorder. I shot about 10 minutes worth of video of these cells from the west side of them. They looked very spectacular with the way the sun was shining on them. I should have just stayed there as it got dark and I probably could have gotten some really good lightning shots, but I decided the towers were good enough for me. I headed back home to Champaign and arrived around 8pm.

Final thoughts:
While I didn’t really see any storm activity, the view I got from the backside of the storms was worth everything. It was also a good chance to experiment with my still camera and see how well the cloud pictures come out. After being chaseless for over a month, it was good to see some good convection again! It looks like tomorrow could bring another chance of severe weather, so maybe we’ll get some more chances to chase!

Special Thanks:
I’d like to thank mother nature for finally bringing us some convection! (Maybe next time it won’t take so long to come around my neck of the woods!)

Total Chase Time: 1 hour
Total Chase Miles: 30 miles