2013-11-17 REPORTS: IL/IN/KY/OH

[Dan Robinson]

My original target for this day was right here at home (New Baden, IL, just east of STL), as I expected a scenario similar to 4/2/06 where a couple of tail-end supercells would provide opportunities less than an hour from here. I liked the more easterly storm motions down here, coupled with the better instability. I envisioned a chase down the I-70 or I-64 corridors, dropping south near the Indiana border for new storms.

I didn't stick to my target, and ended up busting. I instead took off after the inital activity initiating just west of STL, heading north to Springfield to position ahead of these cells. I then jumped on the storm approaching Lincoln, Illinois, which displayed promise initially, but remained cold and undercut in appearance as it raced by. I then plotted a course east and south via Champaign to catch the next storm as it crossed I-57. Even after planning a generous intercept route for extreme storm speeds, I still underestimated the storm's I-57 crossing time. Before arriving at Champaign, it was apparent I would not make it in time to the storm's crossing point near Tuscola. However, a new supercell evolved out of the current storm's forward flank, and began ramping up just southwest of Champaign. I positioned just north of Champaign near Thomasboro to observe this storm as it passed. A long arcing RFD gust front wrapped back to a rain-wrapped meso, but otherwise the storm did not exhibit imminent signs of producing.

After this storm moved northeast of my position, I let it go and plotted a course to intercept the Tuscola storm farther east in Indiana. However, just after the Champaign storm moved northeast of my position, a strong couplet appeared about 6 miles to my north-northeast. I stopped and turned around, straining to look into the murky precip but seeing nothing. This image is from my rear dashcam just as I decided to stop and turn around:

The tornado is obviously in there, but I think it's a stretch to call this a catch. This is the EF4 that is probably very close to, or impacting, the town of Gifford at this time. I would not find out about the town for another hour. Stopping to attempt to view this storm for the additional 20 minutes cost me any chance of intercepting storms further downstream, ending my chase.

On the way home, I encountered a fresh tornado damage track on I-57 at Tuscola from the storm I was originally trying to get to. This was the one captured on dashcam video by Scott Sims as it impacted him under the overpass on I-57. The tornado was heavily rain-wrapped, and would not have been visible if I had made it to Tuscola in time. I encountered two overturned semis another 2 miles down the road, apparently from straight-line winds.

Had I stuck to my original target at home, I may have caught the EF4 that occurred just 35 miles to the east. However, there were no guarantees. I would have had to chosen Highway 177 to see it, otherwise I would have encountered the storm at a time it was cycling. Timing was everything this day, mostly the luck of the draw to get on a storm at the exact moment it was producing.

 

[Winston Wells]

2013-11-17 REPORTS: IL/IN

I'm hoping that this will draw out some reports from the many chasers in the Great Lakes region who were out on Sunday. This high-end event broke central Illinois's long drought of severe weather in a big but tragic way. I missed the long-track EF-4 tornado that did so much damage to Washington, IL (as well as the New Minden and Gifford, IL tornadoes) but I did get to experience the weird feeling of intercepting a tornado-warned storm at 11:30 in the morning.

I left my home in west-central Illinois at 9 a.m. with an initial target of Lincoln, IL. The surface conditions were simply remarkable for mid-November: temps were already in the low 70s with dews in the low 60s as a result of surface winds screaming from the SSE. A cell that was part of the initial complex of storms fired near Winchester, IL around 10 a.m. It eventually became TOR-warned - the first of the day, I believe - over Ashland, IL. I decided to move a bit west of Lincoln on IL-10 and wait for the storm to arrive. With storm motions near 60 mph I didn't have to wait long. After heading south a bit on County 15 into the small town of Middletown, IL, I had an excellent view of the storm's base which was sporting a small lowering as it rocketed off to the NE. I took this shot just SE of Middletown. The view is to the NW:

I took the next shot a few minutes later from County 15 just north of town. The view here is due north:

This last shot looks at the cell as it was moving rapidly off to the NE. I took this from 1550th Street as I was heading east back into Lincoln. The view is to the NNE:

 

[Skip Talbot]

Targeted Bloomington, IL for a noon intercept of insanely fast moving, semi discrete tornadic supercells, fully expecting to do point intercepts dropping down the line. I picked Bloomington more for its interstate options, including 74, 55, and 39, than as a specific forecast target. Much of the warm sector seemed pretty primed to me.

Watched a line of cells tracking northeast near Peoria, and more firing west of Springfield. As a discrete storm southwest of Lincoln was going tornado warned, I decided to pull the trigger on an intercept of it and raced back down 55 south. Meanwhile another discrete storm was coming up out of Peoria. I was on an almost even latitude with it, however, and feared I might actually miss intercepting it if I had tried even though it was well to my west and I could have headed it off going north. I could tell as soon as I left that that was the storm though as it looked fantastic on radar, with a perfect ball shaped hook.

I had a 130 mph closing speed to the Lincoln storm, so I was on it in no time. A wall cloud with pronounced tail came into view, and my heart sank. I thought that was the entire chase. My point intercept would be this wall cloud and the storm would rocket away. Going against my own advice, I tried to keep up with it anyway. It would have been absolutely impossible if not for the paved Illinois road grid. I was able to stair step and hold pace with the storm for awhile, just to its south, something that would have been impossible in Kansas or elsewhere on the plains.

The storm exhibited a pronounced RFD clear slot and spiraling rain bands, and scruffy condensation beneath the wall cloud region, but did not produce as far as I could tell. I did my best to keep up with the storm, hauling down the paved grid, but it was still pulling away from me. I was presented with one option that would have kept me out of the storm to its south and east, but the roads led into a town, where I knew I'd be guaranteed to lose the cell and fall behind. The alternative was to keep heading north, into the storm, and then cut east. I went for it and drove north right into the RFD region of the supercell. Visibility was good at the time, and that storm was moving so incredibly fast that I never even had a chance to get close to the potential tornado path. The southern end of the RFD gust front was already pulling away to my NE when I hit my east option. Approaching Bloomington, I realized I had lost the storm. It was to my NE, and there was really no way to get ahead of it at this point. The storm was also going HP on me, the hook region bowing out with a solid wall of precipitation.

The flanking line of cells to its southwest was also bowing out, and I was caught briefly in the core just southwest of Bloomington. It was much more intense than I expected. The winds shifted directions on me and there was stuff swirling around in the air for a bit. Ducking south, I was almost immediately out of it, however, as this line was racing NE too.

Another small, semi discrete storm with a hook was approaching Champaign county from the southwest. I was almost due north of it by about 30 or 40 miles, and decided that I could head it off traveling east. Man, it took absolutely everything I had. I raced down 74, and then east on the paved grid before 57 between Rantoul and Champaign. I couldn't even head off a storm that was south of me. I could see the back end of the RFD gust front to my southeast, getting ready to cross in front of me. White bands of hail swirled around the back end of the storm, masking what lurked under the base. I started stair stepping NE desperately trying to approach the storm before it slid away to the northeast.

Crossing 57, SW of Rantoul I decided to attempt a hook slice. Visibility was poor, but I had glimpses of the base ahead of me, so I could tell I would remain behind the tornado producing region of the storm. South of Rantoul, I had a visual on a large dark shape crossing the road, about 2 miles ahead of me, before it vanished back into the rain. It was difficult to confirm at the time, but it was indeed a wedge tornado minutes prior to impacting the town of Gifford. The camcorder did a decent job picking it up. I noticed a couple of powerflashes on my road a few moments later, probably RFD wrap around or an inflow jet behind the tornado, and I slowed my progress as I realized I'd be coming into a damage path and the precipitation in the hook brought the visibility way down.

A few miles southeast of Rantoul, about a minute later, I started to see damage: a line of dirt clods and branches trailing across the road, trees down, a buckled guard rail. Then I saw a house with the roof missing, structural damage, lines down. A deer standing on the side of the road darted out in front of me, and I just barely missed tapping its back end as I drove around it on the left. A powerpole was snapped and lay blocking the road, the lines draped across the front yard. I jumped out of the van and ran to the house to see if anyone needed help inside. The front door was blown open and everything inside had been turned upside down and strewn into huge piles of debris. There was no ceiling, and the RFD was raging inside the house. A woman was just crawling out of the debris. I asked if she was alright, but her reply was incoherent, and it was obvious she was still in shock and badly shaken. She looked OK, at first glance and was walking, so I helped her from her home and back toward the van so we could get out of the storm, taking care not to encounter the downed lines. Torrential RFD rain was coming down and we got completely soaked through by the time we got into the van.

A neighbor showed up to help, and the woman was complaining that her heard hurt. Suspecting a head trauma, we called for an ambulance, and then her relatives in Rantoul to come meet us. The ambulance never showed, there were too many calls coming out of Gifford. We were finally met by police and volunteer firefighters though, who had some first aid, and then relatives who transported her to a hospital in Champaign. I think she'll be fine.

The stop for help was the end of my chase. The line was entering Indiana by the time I was heading out of there and I was underneath crystal clear skies behind the cold front. One of the best parts of the day was getting home and peeling off those cold, soaking wet clothes.

Here's a still of the wedge I pulled from my video:

Tornado was rated EF-3 with a 24 mile path length and 6 injuries. Major damage was done to the town of Gifford.

This is the house I came upon:

A video account of my chase, including a glimpse of the tornado and stop to help:

Watch video >

 

[Scott Sims]

I am not exactly proud of this encounter, but I thought it should be shown and my story told here, so we can all learn from my mistakes. Plus, since I was there and the footage now exists, it is compelling to watch.

I had been on the Middletown-Lincoln supercell for a while, after being just a bit too far south to have a chance to make it to the Washington cell. After the Middletown meso raced away, I decided to cut through Lincoln, go to Champaign to get on I-57 south to see if I could catch a view of the cell headed for Tuscola on the way home to Southern IL. Then the mistakes started to pile up and compound on each other.

The first mistake would be the fact that I was chasing alone, compounded with the storm speeds to make decision times very short.

The second mistake was trying to beat the storm speeds by using I-57, instead of US-45, allowing me no options except forward, back or pull over.

The third mistake was not realizing my orientation was SE when visually scanning the storm as I passed the Pesotum exit. This made the storm 'look' further west, and kept me from hitting the exit ramp when I could. After that, I had 8 miles to go to make the Tuscola exit. As I rounded the curve that points me back directly South, I see the wall of rain and the green hail core approaching the Interstate. Some small to medium intermittent hail starts falling on me at this time as well.

The fourth mistake happened as I checked my radar to decide what to do. I didn't scroll back and see the history before making the call to stop, and based it almost entirely off of the BR .5-18:42 scan of the ILX radar(I was at the red dot west of Villa Grove on the image below). On that scan, I decided quickly(too quickly) that the most likely area of rotation appeared to be going to cross closer to the Tuscola exit, which 2-4 miles south of where I eventually stopped. So, when I picked this underpass, I was not basing it on an expectation of viewing or being hit by a tornadic circulation. I know the rules and wouldn't have done that thinking i would 'be protected'. I was expecting hail, hard rain, zero visibility and a stiff west wind, and did not want to lose a window or be hit from behind by people driving blindly into this at over 60MPH. Having no exit before this core and no quick turnaround in the median before the bridge, I pulled in under the median as close to the center support column as possible to avoid the hail, drivers and hopefully the bulk of any straight line wind driven debris.



Had I scrolled back and looked at earlier scans, I would have seen the on and off rotation near the center(and not the south end) of this storm. It appears now in review to have been basically a northern bookend vortex of a very short bow segment. Its easy now with time, calmness, and subsequent scans of this storm to see in the loop how a tornado embedded in the center of that.

I'm sorry if any of my mistakes here end up reflecting poorly on the chasing community as a whole. I am not a Yahoo chaser, and never wanted to be this close to one in my life. I generally try to be a 1+ mile away lower profile chaser, as you can see from my earlier videos. However, compounding mistakes and taking core punching chances on a day where rotations were basically everywhere and moving diagonally at nearly 70 was a bad play.


Watch video >


UPDATE:11-22-2013 -- This doesn't negate any of my mistakes, but at least I wasn't completely crazy. The tornado that hit me was not the EF3 Villa Grove Tornado. That circulation did in fact pass 2+ miles to my south, as I expected. However, I still missed scrolling back to see the embedded bookend vortex that became the smaller EF1/2 Circulation that hit me on I-57. Pardon my updating, but this distinction from the ILX damage surveys made me feel slightly less stupid.

2nd update: 11-24-2013 Ok, now the path continuations are switched around again. Either way, got way to close to a complex swirling mess with access to way to much energy.

 

[j_hass13]

Hello stormtrack! So this is my first post on stormtrack. Although I am an avid user, I have only read your amazing storys and forecasts since I joined. I live in Peru, IL and had the chance to go out with a two fellow severe weather enthusiasts.

After picking an initial target of Gilman, IL, I met up with Rich Ryczek and Tom Johnson in Oglesby (they live near McHenry, IL) around 945am. We got on I39 and headed south towards Rt 24 in anticipation of taking that all the way to Gilman. I originally choose that area based on the road network and what looked like the best chance at seeing some action. I knew that having a good road network was going to be absolutely crucial in being able to chase that day since we all knew that these storms were going to be moving extremely fast. As we were traveling down 39, we began to see the radar light up on the west-central area of Illinois, namely between Jacksonville and Quincy. At that moment, we altered our target area and got off of I39 at Rt. 116. We went through the towns of Benson and Roanoke and pulled off on a side road to check the radar and get an idea as to our next move. We were watching a line of storms that were ongoing off to the west, but they didnt look to promising, they were already going linear. After watching the radar for a few minutes, a small storm popped up out in front of this main line. I knew that if this cell could stay out in front, it would have the best chance at producing a tornado. We bagan to make our move and headed towards the town of Washington. In a matter of minutes, this storm had already started to show signs of rotation and we could begin to see it off in the distance. I could see what I thought was a wall cloud, but wasnt 100% sure.

We were now a few miles outside of Washington and could make out a well defined wall cloud and what appeared to be a funnel. It was still off in the distance, but we knew that we had made the right decision as to what storm to latch on to. The storm seemed to be cycling at this time. We believe that the storm was in the East Peoria area at this time. We continued to move towards Washington when all of a sudden, the storm kicked into high gear. It dropped a nice cone tornado and at this point, I phoned in to the NWS in Lincoln to make a report(time was 1053am). We were now on Tazewood Rd. just before Dee-Mac Road, where we found a field inlet and backed our vehicle in so that we could make a quick escape if we needed to. The tornado was now just to the south west of Washington and was gaining strength. As it was approaching Washington, it morphed into a large wedge and hit the town head on. We were in awe, and knew that we could possibly be watching people losing their lives. We could see the debris beign thrown in all directions and knew that this storm was leveling houses. We continued watching the destruction, what seemed like forever, and could only imagine what it was like for the people in town. The tornado was still growing in size and was becoming rain wrapped at the same time, we were having trouble making out the leading edge of the tornado. Once I lost all visual of it, I knew it was time to go. We took our escape route to the east and continued to watch the storm out the drivers side of the car. The tornado was still on the ground, but we were unable to see it because it was now completely rain wrapped. We continued on until we got to rt. 117 and took that north. By this time, the storm had put a good amount of distance between us. We go back on 116 and tried to catch back up, but as we had discussed at the begining of the day, it was moving much faster than we were able to. We decided to cut off from this storm and go after another one that we had been watching that was currently in Bloomington. We continued on 116 until we got into Pontiac, where we realized that the only way we were going to get in position on this storm, would be punching the core. Yeah, I dont think so! Not something I will ever do on purpose, I will live to chase another day.

I was now around 130, and we had had enough for the day, so we headed for home. We made a few detours while driving back to survey some of the damage througout the countryside. We stayed in the rural areas and had no intention of going anywhere near Washington. I have no medical training and wont become one of the gawkers taking pictures of people that just had their lives turned upside down. All in all, it was a very successful chase and Im glad that I was able to give my two friends thier first successful chase, and to top it off, my first experience with an EF4 tornado. I hve almost 300 pictures and about 10 minutes of video but here are a few of the pics that stand out.

View attachment 8007View attachment 8008View attachment 8009View attachment 8010View attachment 8011

 

[Adam Lucio]

Caught the monster Washington EF-4 as it moved north of Roanoke. I timed the intercept well and decided to position north of the tornado and have it cross to our east. I had originally hoped to continue following it, but the hook echo precip quickly swallowed us and I lost sight of it and decided to abort in case it made a jog north. I was surprised at the photogenic nature of this, and many of the tornadoes from this day. Im thinking storms were well vented by the shear pushing much of the precip out and away from the updrafts, and that helped.

Full Account: http://www.aerostorms.com/washington-illinois-ef-4-tornado-november-17th-2013/

Video: Watch video >

 

[Skip Talbot]

Finally was able to complete my chase log for this event including annotated map, videos, photos, stats and detailed write-up:
http://skip.cc/chase/131117/

I also time lapsed my footage from the chase. There were some interesting sequences that I forgot I had, including a distant view of the cells that went on to produce the Washington, IL tornado, a nice wall cloud near Lincoln, and some cumulus screaming by in the low level jet. The tornado sequence is about 2 seconds at 16X speed, but it's neat to see the motion as it goes spinning left across the screen.
Watch video >