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March 30, 2005 – Chase to Piatt County

There’s nothing like waking up to the entire state of Illinois draped under a moderate risk! At first I thought it was an early April Fools joke by the fine folks at the SPC, but after further review I noticed there was indeed a chance of some severe weather. Unfortunately I was stuck at work till 4pm, so going after the prime target of north central Illinois or anything in Iowa was definitely out of the question.

During the afternoon, storms started firing up in western Illinois. Several of them went severe and then finally one went tornadic near the Peoria area. I sat there at work drooling at the radar screen and was hoping that someone was chasing it. Right before I left work, I tried to come up with a target area. I had planned on heading up towards Bloomington, but with the storms moving at 65mph I had to readjust my plans.

Stan Olson 2005, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments
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July 13, 2004 – Tornado intercept near Carlock IL

A moderate risk in July here in Illinois?? That’s what I awoke to on Tuesday morning. The models were showing some decent wind shear across parts of Illinois today, not to mention the insane amount of instability and moisture in the air. I was thinking it would be a good day for severe weather mainly because my weather server at home took a crap on me and decided it didn’t want to operate today, so that meant no weather updates to my cell phone. When I got to work, I loaded up all my weather applications and monitored the situation closely. I noticed one lone supercell firing up in northwest Illinois late Tuesday morning that made me wonder if things were going up too soon. Several tornado warnings were going out shortly after 12:30pm, this thing was churning! At this rate I would never have a chance to chase. I normally get off at 4:30, but I pulled a few strings and managed to get off at 1:30. I went home and loaded up the gear, then headed out to chase this thing.

I headed west on I-74 just after 2:00pm, hoping to get to Bloomington and then go north from there. As I got closer to Bloomington, I was hearing reports on the scanner of tornadoes in Woodford county. I got off at the Carlock exit and as I made it to the top of the off ramp, I saw something to my north that caught my eye. There appeared to be a tornado about 10 miles to my north, but the contrast was so low that at the time I could not confirm that it was indeed a tornado. (video analysis confirmed a tornado) I headed west and then north of Carlock, trying to get closer without driving into anything I would later regret. 😉 As I headed north, I had to check the map several times to make sure I wasn’t in Missouri. Most of central Illinois is fairly decent for chasing, but I managed to find one of the most tree covered, hilly parts of the area. (not to mention the freaking corn fields!) Anywho, I made way to US 24 and headed east to El Paso (IL, not TX) and then headed south on SR 251.

Stan Olson 2004, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments
July 13, 2004 – Tornado intercept near Carlock ILRead more

July 5, 2004 – Chase to Western IL

I wasn’t expecting to chase today as the main area seemed to be further west into Missouri. (we’ve been there enough this year!) As the day went on though, the SPC sent out updates saying there was a small tornadic risk in western Illinois. (nifty 5% area!) I decided to take my normal lunch hour rather than work through it and leave early, really not expecting to get out and chase. I started to change my mind when a tornado watch was issued at 4:00pm for western Illinois. I left work at 4:30pm and went home to load up the gear. I departed Champaign at 5:00pm and headed west on I-72. Despite there being a tornado warning out for Kankakee county and seeing the storm from Champaign, I decided that the best stuff should be further west. (I would have never caught up to it anyway) As I got west of Springfield, I noticed ‘something’ to my southwest but I wasn’t seeing anything on radar/satellite. When I got to Jacksonville I almost decided to go south to attempt an intercept of whatever was down there, but decided against it.

I kept going west on I-72 until I started seeing stuff firing up to my northwest. I got off at exit 46 and headed north on SR 100. I took it north and then jogged onto US 67 which would take me more in a northwesterly direction. As I entered McDonough county around 8:00pm, I checked radar which showed a line of storms just to my northwest. (yay!) Once I got to Macomb, I headed west on US 136 mainly due to the slow people in front of me who must have thought it was still Sunday instead of Monday. Once I got into Tennessee (yes, I’m still in northwest IL..) I headed north on CR 11 towards the cell that was starting to come into view. I started seeing a very nifty shelf cloud with a possible wall cloud behind it. (about time!) As I got closer, there appeared to be some funnel looking thingies (yes that’s the official term for them) coming out of this possible wall cloud, but I don’t put any merit into them at all. (no rotation from what I could see)

Stan Olson 2004, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments
July 5, 2004 – Chase to Western ILRead more

May 24, 2004 – Chase in Champaign County

*This chase refers to May 24th, but my chase didn’t begin until the early morning hours of May 25th.*

Today wasn’t really looking too good for a chase around east central Illinois. The main show was back in northern Missouri and southern Iowa where the SPC had a high risk out. I watched in frustration at work as all these cells fired up and went tornadic, all the while hoping no one was getting injured or killed over there. As the day went on, the SPC seemed to keep shifting the high/moderate risks further to the east. Would the storms really hold together that far east, only time would tell.

As the late evening progressed, I noticed the storms were still sticking together as they made their way into Illinois. At 10:45pm (5/24), the SPC issued a tornado watch for central Illinois. (no sleepy for me!) The storms were starting to form into bow echoes as they made their way towards my area. I kept flipping back between WCIA-3 and WAND-17 as each of them broke in with live radar updates at such a late hour. I figured I wasn’t going to get any sleep with all the storms, so why not go out and see what these storms were packing.

Stan Olson 2004, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments
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May 23, 2004 – Chase in Central IL

After Saturday’s bustola in northern Illinois, I wasn’t sure if I was going to chase or not. I had considered finding a hotel in northern Illinois for a possible Sunday chase, but decided I’d just save the money and head home. Looking at the morning SPC Day 1 outlook revealed yet another moderate risk plastered over northern Illinois, Indiana, and southern Michigan. I was being rather lazy on Sunday morning, just glancing at the weather data when my buddy Darin called wanting to know if I was going to chase. Since he moved to southern Illinois, we haven’t had a chance to chase so I figured today would be a fine day to break that streak. He was at a friend’s in Decatur, so I decided to meet him in Bloomington and we’d go from there.

I departed Champaign around 10:30am and received word of a tornado watch for southern Illinois. (what in the world is going on here!) I didn’t think much of it and continued on my way. There was also a tornado watch out for northern Indiana and parts east of there, which also didn’t look the greatest. I met up with Darin at a McD’s in Bloomington and we gathered data on my slow cell phone connection. At the time, everything was still pointing to somewhere in northern Illinois. We were originally going to target somewhere south of I-80 between the Quad Cities and Peru. Around 12:30pm, I received word of a mesoscale discussion for NE MO/E.IA/W.IL regarding a potential tornado watch. They mentioned significant tornadoes and very large hail, so that quickly got our attention. Decision time… Do we keep to the north, or do we head towards western Illinois? We both agreed on the western Illinois area and picked our favorite hotspot of Macomb to target.

Stan Olson 2004, Chase Logs, Weather No Comments
May 23, 2004 – Chase in Central ILRead more