chrisbray
EF4
Hi everyone.
Yesterday was a really discouraging chase for me personally. I reached my target area of Dixon Illinois around 2pm. Based on the models I figured the best option was to continue northwest from there and I reached Lanark, Illinois as the cells were firing up. There were a handful of cells around the Northwest Illinois, Eastern Iowa area and as they developed everything looked good, they looked sheared and started to take on a classic supercell look. I followed the cell that went between Lanark and Freeport, and a it passed I saw nothing other than rain and some lightning. No evidence of organization, no low cloud base, no rotation. Very confusing since the forecast and environment seemed to indicate explosive storm development and supercells.
Shortly after that my storm, as well as the other cells in that area, disappated. The only exception was the storm just west of Dixon, which of course was my INITIAL TARGET. That cell eventually became tornado warned, though I have yet to see any reports of tornados or photos/videos either. From there, that cell moved east/northeast and others fromed with it, eventually turning into a squall line. Meanwhile, nothing happened west of there. You had to go all the way into Iowa to find anything until very late evening when some cells approached the far northwest corner if Illinois. Downstream across Indiana and Ohio, seems like several cells formed ahead of the action, and way upstream, in Central Iowa there were several tornados near the low pressure center.
If you look at the storm reports for yesterday, I essentially chased the huge gap between the Mississippi River and where the hail/wind reports start in north-central Illinois. In both the breif/weak cells I chased, as well as the back end of broken line of storms across central Illinois, I never saw anything remotely like low level circulation, wall clouds, lowerings, or even supercell structure. Just lots of scud, some shelf clouds,and heavy rain with occaisional small hall. Cloud bases, especially in the evening storms, seemed a bit high.
I guess my question is, what lead to this? Was it the timing of the shortwave? It seemed like parameters were at least in place for supercells, but that first wave of cells never even seemed to get to a mature stage. Just a frustrated chase looking to learn, so if anyone had a similar experience or insights into the weather yesterday, feel free to chime in.
Yesterday was a really discouraging chase for me personally. I reached my target area of Dixon Illinois around 2pm. Based on the models I figured the best option was to continue northwest from there and I reached Lanark, Illinois as the cells were firing up. There were a handful of cells around the Northwest Illinois, Eastern Iowa area and as they developed everything looked good, they looked sheared and started to take on a classic supercell look. I followed the cell that went between Lanark and Freeport, and a it passed I saw nothing other than rain and some lightning. No evidence of organization, no low cloud base, no rotation. Very confusing since the forecast and environment seemed to indicate explosive storm development and supercells.
Shortly after that my storm, as well as the other cells in that area, disappated. The only exception was the storm just west of Dixon, which of course was my INITIAL TARGET. That cell eventually became tornado warned, though I have yet to see any reports of tornados or photos/videos either. From there, that cell moved east/northeast and others fromed with it, eventually turning into a squall line. Meanwhile, nothing happened west of there. You had to go all the way into Iowa to find anything until very late evening when some cells approached the far northwest corner if Illinois. Downstream across Indiana and Ohio, seems like several cells formed ahead of the action, and way upstream, in Central Iowa there were several tornados near the low pressure center.
If you look at the storm reports for yesterday, I essentially chased the huge gap between the Mississippi River and where the hail/wind reports start in north-central Illinois. In both the breif/weak cells I chased, as well as the back end of broken line of storms across central Illinois, I never saw anything remotely like low level circulation, wall clouds, lowerings, or even supercell structure. Just lots of scud, some shelf clouds,and heavy rain with occaisional small hall. Cloud bases, especially in the evening storms, seemed a bit high.
I guess my question is, what lead to this? Was it the timing of the shortwave? It seemed like parameters were at least in place for supercells, but that first wave of cells never even seemed to get to a mature stage. Just a frustrated chase looking to learn, so if anyone had a similar experience or insights into the weather yesterday, feel free to chime in.