06/18/10 REPORTS: IA/IL/IN/MI/KS

[Jeff Duda]

Mods, feel free to split/move/rearrange the title as is needed to include all areas affected today.

Chased the HPish crap that developed in southern IA today. Was actually in between two initial updrafts, one over I-80 west of DSM and one over Winterset when the southeast one went tornado warned. We were visually cut off by precip, but until that point the updraft of that storm had looked nice, so it's no surprise to me that it was the one to produce. Unfortunately, we were too far away (heading south on I-69/65 through Indianola) as it happened, and as soon as we got clear of the precip, it of course all dumped in on the inflow and there was nothing to see.

We had a lot of trouble staying ahead of the first storm as it immediately began surging south and east after it produced the tornado. We gave up on it in Chariton after feeling outflow still 10 miles away from the storm. We headed west towards the stuff going up west of Osceola and had a nice liesurely drive through the back roads of Clarke and Decatur Counties, hitting a deer in the process. Just as we popped back out at I-35 at Van Wert, I got a radar update that showed a broad couplet just to our north and the storm went tornado warned simultaneously. Never saw anything resembling anything tornadic...ever, today. Ran across the TIV quite a few times from Van Wert and on. Eventually gave up south of Garden Grove and drove back north on US 65 to punch through it. Didn't see much other than some very small hail and gusty winds. A little in the way of tree damage. We were treated to beautiful mammatus and a vibrant rainbow behind the system, though.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Stayed home today and had two significant bow echos come to my front porch. I intercepted the first west of DeKalb just south of Malta, IL. Pretty disorganized structure, but some fierce winds gusting to around 70 mph. Took down a chunk of the tree in my front yard which last evening, not 24 hours before I had said "this tree needs pruned, it's hanging down way too low". Well, thanks mother nature.



Round two came in around sunset. I headed south for this one to the wind farm in DeKalb County just outside of town.

Entire flickr set here, if you feel so compelled.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/prairiestormmedia/sets/72157624181707173/

 

[Olivier Staiger]

chased in SE Iowa , saw some good lightning

 

[edward oneal]

6/18/10 KS

This report is from Kansas, chased small cell in SW Kansas. Had reports of 4" hail, by the time I got to it the updraft was shrinking but still looked very strong . Reminded me of smoke rising from a stack, motion was very fast. Here are a couple of pictures.

 

[Bob Matzen]

Few storm pictures from early Friday morning, as it passed thru east central Nebraska, about 15 miles north of Omaha.

 

[Nick Nolte]

Here's my contribution to this thread. I left Michigan at noon (had to work) and hightailed it towards southeastern Iowa. I had made the decision just before leaving to forego my original destination which was around the IA/WI/IL intersection and play a bit further south.

Was in Burlington and Mount Pleasant, IA for the second time in two weeks as these were my staging areas on the 5th for my Elmwood/Yates City chase. So now I know that area pretty well lol.

Anyway, was driving north up US 218 out of Mount Pleasant to try and head east on IA-92 before the bow echo overtook me, didn't quite make it so I got to drive under the awesome shelf cloud and then I enjoyed rain for most of the way back to Michigan.

Photos of the shelf as I approached then got caught by the bow apex. First photo is looking NNW and the other two are looking WSW as the shelf began to overtake me on US 218 about a mile south of IA 92.

 

[ericjkelly]

Stayed home in Fort Wayne and waited for the storm to get here.

We shot out to Columbia City IN and then kept shooting south to avoid getting smacked by this.

Really cool looking Base Velocity from GR3

 

[Tim Balassie]

A rather interesting, if somewhat convoluted, forecasting day yesterday. As has been noted by several, SPC kept the 10% tornado risk into E WI thru the 20z convective outlook. Yet to my knowledge nothing of consequence occurred in that area. Winds never backed from SW; everything looked unidirectional by late in the afternoon.

However, the area of low pressure in NE KS at around 12z did go on to support severe across S IA, as noted. This, even tho wind fields were progged to be really poor.

Chased into Greene Co WI in hopes of supercells forming in the wake of derecho #1. But it seemed to me that the atmo was not going to recover sufficiently for tornadic supercells, at least not S of Madison. Did not experience wx as severe as further S into IL. [My neighborhood experienced some tree damage, and power was out until 5pm today.] Pictures were not that great; not as nice as those above.

Came home and ate, went out to spot for derecho(?)#2 around 8:45. Nicer shelf cloud, more lightning, but no severe.

TMB