2011-05-28 REPORTS: KS, MO, IL, IN

[John Farley]

Caught the long-track and intense, but elevated, supercell that crossed Illinois this afternoon, leaving a swath of hail across the state that reached softball size in a couple places. This picture was taken looking west from between Shipman and Jerseyville:

The view looking west at the storm was most impressive from some distance, where you could see more of the storm structure. I tried to keep up with the storm well past Hillsboro, but between its 50 mph movement, my staying south to avoid the hail core, and poor road network, it became increasingly evident that keeping up was a lost cause.



​

 

[Matt Hunt]

I caught up to the same cell near Lakewood, IL. It had lost some of its intensity at that point, so I went right for the hail core. Got into some quarter size hail, and after it passed went looking for bigger hail, but there wasn't really much. The biggest I found was about 1.25" but that was 10 minutes after it fell, so I'm sure it was around 1.5" or so. I was hoping that would just be a warm-up for some better storms later, but afterwards I looked at the satellite and saw cloud cover throughout MO and a strong cap forecasted on the RUC, so I headed back home. Still better than sitting at home just watching the radar!

 

[Dan Robinson]

I was also on the elevated IL hailer on May 28.

Here is my report with some photos:
http://stormhighway.com/blog2011/may2811a.shtml