2015-09-10 REPORTS: NE/KS/MO/IL

[Dan Robinson]

A very short chase tonight about 25 miles from home yielded some great lightning with a severe storm that tracked from Greenville, IL along I-70 to I-64 at Nashville, IL.



A couple more images here:

http://stormhighway.com/blog2015/sept1015a.php

 

[kevin-palmer]

I had a decent chase yesterday in Illinois. A line of storms that formed in Minnesota the previous day arrived in my area in the early afternoon. An outflow boundary was showing on radar, so I went to Eureka hoping to see a shelf cloud. I never saw a shelf, but instead there was something like a dust storm as the outflow boundary passed over. After that a severe storm cell formed near the Mississippi River so I started heading southwest to meet it. But before I reached that storm I encountered another small cell in front of it that was surprisingly photogenic. It displayed a circular rain-free base and I watched it shrivel up as the storm died.


Sunshine and Storm by Kevin Palmer, on Flickr


Prairie Storm by Kevin Palmer, on Flickr


Shriveling Base by Kevin Palmer, on Flickr

You can see my position here. That small cell did not look particularly impressive on radar. After that I focused my attention to the bigger storm behind it. There wasn't even a 2% tornado risk today in Illinois, surface winds were just too weak. But when this storm latched onto the old outflow boundary, it started to rotate and dropped a brief tornado that damaged a house in Bath.


Radarcope Screenshot 9/10/15 by Kevin Palmer, on Flickr

I tried to get closer, but that proved difficult as the cell started to move in a more southerly direction with the boundary. I got close enough to see some great structure with a blueish-green glow, striations, and what looked like a small wall cloud. At that time it was dropping golf-ball sized hail. But I didn't get a shot of that since it felt like I was driving through a corn maze. By the time I found a clear area, the storm wasn't looking as nice and the tornado warning was about to expire. That's the bad thing about chasing in Illinois after July, corn can block your view much of the time.


Athens Storm by Kevin Palmer, on Flickr

It was nice to chase again, and this could end up being my last chase of the year since there are no guarantees for fall. Although I saw some nice structure, it was still disappointing being so close, but missing yet another tornado. This marks the 5th confirmed tornadic supercell I've chased this year, but I have 0 tornado pictures to show for it.

 

[Paul Hadfield]

Casually heading a few miles north of Decatur to greet the inbound gust/dust front generated by prior storms in McLean and Dewitt counties, saw numerous 'leafnadoes' spin up in the bean fields which are presently turning. A well timed break in the clouds allowed the foreground to illuminate in a way that rarely seems to happen. Thinking this was all and the outflow would complicate future development, I regrettably did not pay attention to what was occurring NW of Springfield that I could have easily got to. When the storm of the day entered Sangamon County, rather than deal with Springfield congestion, I went SE of town but was never able to get into ideal position. By the time I found a line, it was toast yet still tried to make it work. No complaints though had I stayed home vs. be suckered into a warned storm having produced a whopping 30 second tornado as later learned, I would've caught an amazing mammatus at sunset display downstream.





Looking west towards Springfield as the warned storm in the distance becomes obscured by a heavy rain shaft preceding it.


Southern Sangamon County


Northern Christian County