2013-07-02 MISC: IL

[Dan Robinson]

I observed a feature on Tuesday (July 2) that I'm about 70% confident in calling a very weak tornado near Geff, Illinois (north of Fairfield). If not a tornado, maybe a "pre-tornadic pressure fall event". I'm interested in hearing others' thoughts. I put together a writeup here, including a link to the video:

http://stormhighway.com/blog2013/july313a.shtml

This feature consisted of rapid rising condensation into the center of a clearly rotating cloud base. Yesterday's Saint Francisville, IL tornado began this way, as did the Sedalia, Missouri tornado on May 20, 2010. Some 'spin' is apparent in the condensation tendrils toward the end of the video. Whatever this was, it dissipated as quickly as it formed.

 

[Scott Sims]

Watch video >

This is a collection of clips from my time following the center of this MCV in Southern Illinois.

These video clips were taken from 3:35PM to 3:55 PM CDT. The view is looking West-Northwest at the features from County Road 1000E about 1.5 to 2 miles north of Mcleansboro IL. These clips were taken during the time when the features I was observing were strongest and closest to me.

I began to follow the features near the center of the low from near Benton, IL around 2pm and reached this spot North of Mcleansboro, where I filmed these clips. After this, I followed the features to East of Fairfield, IL at around 6:30pm, then called the chase due to flooded roads and a drop in intensity. If there had been just a bit more instability, as Dan mentioned in his response to me on his blog posting, these may have been strong enough to be a more classic looking tornado. They seemed to have the upward motion needed for short spurts, but lacked good rotation and sustained intensity.

Sorry for the delay of the post, I intended to upload this over a day ago, but had home internet problems.