2012-05-06 REPORTS: KS/MO/IL/IN

[Dan Robinson]

Despite the weak flow regime, storms were able to take advantage of the numerous boundaries across the Midwest yesterday. Despite being far in between two more organized areas around Kansas City and Chicago, the lightning here around St. Louis was worth a chase from dusk onward.



HD Timelapse:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvuntp87Vqs

More images here:
http://stormhighway.com/blog2012/may712a.shtml

 

[Taylor Wright]

Here's a video of a storm in Olathe, Ks that dropped a tornado for less than a second. Kind of long and unprofessional, but it's our first legitimate video and we rushed the editing to get it online. Had some awesome lightning photos that I will try to get on here later as well. Surprised me that this thing was able to organize so beautifully with the inadequate conditions and low probabilities associated with it, as stated above. I'm still an amateur, so running into Sean Casey and this amazing supercell was one of my best experiences yet. Enjoy.

Watch video >

P.S. Sorry for the type-o in the first clip. Didn't feel like waiting another six hours to correct one letter.

 

[chrisbray]

After driving all day from Illinois to Nebraska on May 5 in order to see absolutely NOTHING, our return trip to Illinois proved to be an unexpected pleasure. We literally got back into Illinois on Interstate 80 just as storms began to fire up around 1:30 pm. After punching the core of the storms in I-80 and noticing some very nice low level action, we got off the interstate as soon as we could, ending up at Princeton, Illinois. As we were heading through town the tornado sirens sounded, and we managed to get just southeast of town and set up for some pictures. By then, the storms had merged into a line. Here's a picture:

Then, we headed southeast from there, crossed the Illinois River, and headed towards a single cell ahead of the advancing line.

It seemed pretty weakly sheared, and didn't really show signs of doing much, so we dropped west a little and watched the tornado warned line as it moved past the Illinois River

Then we headed back east along route 17. The storm's final tornado warning was in effect as we escaped through Wenona, Illinois

At least we saw storms, even if they weren't the great plains supercells we had initially sought out the day before in Iowa/Nebraska!

 

[Skip Talbot]

I too was coming home to Illinois from the busted plains chase the day before. I was hoping to chase on the way home, and despite making it back to IL before 2, I was still coming in late as storms fired 30 miles to my east. I exited 80 at highway 40 and punched the line south of there as the lead cell, which was tornado warned looked to be weakening while the tail end was strengthening. A cell in the line north of Peoria went tornado warned and I came out of the core just behind it. From my vantage it looked like it had already gusted out with a big whale's mouth evident to the east. I intercepted a cell on the flanking line with a nice precip core and updraft base, but it didn't organize much, caught behind the gust front. I chased east eventually coming into the back end of that tornado warned complex east of Lacon, IL and had what looked like a wall cloud develop to my east. I never got in front of it, as I couldn't get around the complex and cells kept building to the south on the gust front. Here's the timelapse from the chase. Nothing spectacular just some pretty skies and rain bands on that first flanking line cell and that low base/wall cloud in the second half:

Watch video >

A fun chase despite storms being caught mostly behind the gust front from the start. It was very warm and humid behind that gust front, however, so there was probably a good amount of low level instability left. Updrafts seemed rather water, but it was more exciting than NE/SD the day before!

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Decent chase day for me in North Texas. Nice structure and some decent pictures.

Recap: http://www.benholcomb.com/Chase-Accounts/20120506
Pictures: http://www.benholcomb.com/photos/stormchasing/20120506