2016-03-15 REPORTS: IL/IA

[Andy Wehrle]

Nick Lorenz and I intercepted the tornado at Hanna City, IL essentially by accident. He couldn't leave work until 4, so we knew we would likely miss something on the way. Once the cells developed in far NE MO on our way down, we could only cross our fingers the show wouldn't be over by the time we got there as they matured and tornado reports came in. There were two main cells in this cluster, the strongest couplet and most of the tornado reports were on the trailing one but I figured the lead cell would eventually intensify as it had unimpeded inflow.

It was on a course that would take it just southeast of Galesburg, so we plotted a route that would allow us to intercept it by going west on I-80 from I-39 at LaSalle/Peru, then exiting on IL-40 to US 34 west and southwest through Kewanee, then south on IL-78.

To our consternation, the lead cell appeared to go HP as we drew near to it, with the couplet buried way back in the rain. Furthermore, a new cell initiated to its south and was on course to crash into it, often the kiss of death for tornadogenesis.

Sure enough, the merging cells appeared to be lining out on radar, so we decided to drop south then blast ahead of them with time to get the car under shelter in case there was hail. We were just planning to let the storms roll over us and shoot lightning on the back side.

We fortuitously chose the Casey's gas station on the west side of Hanna City. I tried for some lightning on the incoming storm, but was frustrated by a lack of clearly visible bolts, trees in the way and cars exiting the gas station shining their lights into my exposures. This shot, as it turns out, was just about two minutes before the tornado would begin just out of frame to the left.

Lightning-Lit Storm, Hanna City, IL 3/15/2016 by Andy, on Flickr

I folded up my tripod and we started to walk back to the car, when we both commented on the fact that the wind was still blowing towards the storm, rather than away from it as we would expect with an outflow-dominant line. However our reaction was more of a "huh, that's interesting" rather than the huge red flag it should have been. Just as we got back to the car, both our cell phones alerted for a tornado warning, followed seconds later by the town's sirens roaring to life. Radar on the laptop showed the merging cells had developed a new inflow notch right on top of us, and there was a pronounced couplet just off to our northwest!

We pulled out from under the gas station canopy, and I pointed my camcorder northwest to capture this in the lightning flashes:

Trivoli/Hanna City, IL Tornado, 3/15/2016 by Andy, on Flickr

This marks my first tornado intercept on a chase!

We should have stayed put here, but we tried going east through town and taking the next road north. Unfortunately it had a ton of trees and hills blocking the view to the west, so we hightailed it out of there, racing ahead of the storm on I-74, then north on 39 towards home. We stopped off at El Paso to grab food at the Dairy Queen and try for some lightning. Only got one semi-decent shot as the best bolts always hit milliseconds after my shutter closed on a 4-second exposure.

Cloud to ground lightning, El Paso, IL 3/15/2016 by Andy, on Flickr

The spectacular lightning show continued to our east as we headed home on I-39, and I had better luck with some video on my DSLR:

Lightning Display, Central IL 3/15/2016 by Andy, on Flickr

 

[Dan Robinson]

My target was Quincy. Missed my only shot at a tornado at Good Hope thanks to my road turning to 3-inch deep gravel. Should have listened to the HRRR! I got some nice lightning at Havana, which kept this from being a complete bust.



More detailed account/more images:
http://stormhighway.com/blog2016/march1616a.php

 

[kevin-palmer]

Yesterday morning I kept going back and forth between choosing Pittsfield as my target or the Macomb area. I left at 12:30 headed towards Pittsfield with plenty of time to get to my target and readjust. But then I had an unexpected delay. I was hit with a migraine so I had to pull off the road and wait it out. By the time I was feeling well enough to drive I had to play catch up the rest of the day. When the cap broke around 4 I could have easily made it to the supercell that passed north of Macomb and dropped a few tornadoes. Because of the delay I never made it, but I tried anyway. The whole time I was driving north there was this small storm cell in between me and the bigger storm. After awhile it had almost died, but then to my surprise it started strengthening. It started rotating before merging with the bigger storm to the north. I saw some rising scud and what looked like a wall cloud over Industry, but that's about it.

After shooting a nice sunset, I turned around and watched a photogenic mini supercell head my way, with plenty of lightning jumping out of the anvil.


Golden Instability by Kevin Palmer, on Flickr


Electric Anvil by Kevin Palmer, on Flickr

While on my way home I had friends calling me asking about the tornado sirens sounding in town. Not only was the tornado warning for the other side of the county, but the warning had already expired when the siren began sounding. I don't like false alarms like that since it just means the public won't take it seriously next time.

I'm not too disappointed about missing any of the after dark tornadoes. But I still wish I could redo this day, without the migraine.

 

[Ethan Schisler]

I chased the significant (EF2) tornadic supercell that traveled from west of Macomb, IL up to near St Augustine, IL yesterday. Observing a long lived tornado from west of Good Hope to south of St Augustine, IL. At times we were able to come within 1/4 mile of the tornadic circulation just south of Little Swan Lake where significant damage was done. Noted the tornado occluding south of St Augustine and continued to chase the cell east hoping for a new cycle, however only noted strong RFD after that. Missed the Hanna City tornado as a result of ending the chase at dark. Oh well


I started the day by heading off to an area just north of Quincy, IL where we watched multiple towers go up in Northeast Missouri. These eventually developed into two distinct supercell thunderstorms which crossed into Illinois. The first of which, the lead cell, was the one we initially chased. However the rear cell got tornado warned quickly, and exhibited strong rotation on radar, so we decided to check it out. It was very un-appealing to me, looked quite cold, and outflow dominant, so I decided to ditch it, in favor for my original supercell. Luckily, storm motions were not fast, so I could catch back up to see the tornadogenesis occur just west of the city of Good Hope, IL. It started off as a high based mesocyclone with quite impressive cloud motion and dust kicking up off the ground. Quickly becoming a wide dusty bowl tornado, eventually wrapping hard in rain and becoming quite large (1800 yards wide per NWS DVN!). The chase ended only 5 miles from my town of Abingdon, an increasingly common occurrence over the past year. This is the 4th significant tornadic supercell I've seen in the past year within 30-45 minutes of home. How remarkable!! I'm just glad nobody got seriously hurt though!

Here are a few low resolution screen grabs and then some video I shot. Had an issue with my camera which caused part of the video to lose focus, its a fairly new camcorder, so I'm still learning the ins and outs of it...plus I usually shoot photos.
Needless to say this was one of the better first chases of the year I've had in a long time.


VIDEO:

PHOTOS:

Tornado over Good Hope, IL


Tornado increasing in size W of Prairie City, IL


Tornado growing quite large just behind the RFD to the south of Little Swan Lake before starting to occlude
Before this image we were able to get within 1/4 mile of the circulation and encountered some extremely severe RFD winds.

 

[Tim Bejster]

My target was Griggsville, IL. Unfortunately my day did not pan out the way I wished it to. Lost my internet for over two hours between 3-5PM, which was prime time to readjust. Between this time I started to observe the convection up towards Keokuk unfold and just cringed. Funny part was as I was driving through Good Hope earlier in the day heading to Griggsville, I reminisced December 23rd of last year and where I stood watching the Sciota tornado. I knew I had time to rush north and catch up around Macomb, but anytime I do that I always get bad luck. So I sat and waited a little longer. As my patience grew short, I decided to take off and start heading home. As I entered Rushville I could see the great scenery from the north. At this time I also stopped and appeared behind me where I noticed a cell blowing up. It was here where I had to make a choice, head back southeast to intercept, or keep heading north towards home and get ransacked up north.
I decided to head southeast back towards Springfield. I passed through Beardstown and continued southeast towards Ashland where I would refill the gas tank (thank goodness it's semi-affordable!). At this time the cell was nearing Jacksonville and I was directly northeast under the anvil filled with dark teal mammatus. At this point my only goal was to get on the southeast side of the storm. I drove off and went through Pleasant Plains, and turned south onto Farmingdale rd. Staring into the evil dark low hanging clouds on the north east side of the storm, I could make out a wall cloud as well as a few other distinct features of the cell. I continued to move south, and went over I-72 to the Old Route 54 and turned west towards the storm. I eventually headed south towards Loami and pulled off on a very rugged road. I was in prime position.


As this storm drew closer and closer, it eventually had a very faint funnel, hardly visible in the low light. I watched as it crossed the road I had just drove south on. This is where I began to move to pursue. As I turned onto Old Route 54 east towards Springfield, I kept my eye sharp to my northeast (and the road of course). Suddenly a flash of lightning revealed the funnel once again. At this time the vehicles in front of me began to slow down and 'slowly' pull off the road to observe. I kept following. For some reason I wanted to be parallel with it. [At this point I was filming with my crappy camera] Lightning struck several times to give an amazing view of the funnel cloud which eventually led to the tornado northwest and north of Curran.

I then ran into Curran, and lost sight of the tornado, and eventually entered into west Springfield. Overall, it was not the greatest day. I took the bait for the large HRRR swath, even though my gut said to head to Keokuk. I can't complain though except for the loss of internet and being bombarded by all the severe weather traveling north on I-39 heading home. The lightning was phenomenal though. A few CG's happened right next to the interstate, close enough to raise the hairs on my arms and send chills down my back. Also, I was not sure if I was going to come home to a house or not, as I watched a tornado warned area in Lee county go right over my house. Luckily, nothing happened locally, and I had a bed to sleep in. Here's to the start of a decent year (hopefully).

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Going to keep it brief here and write up a full log on my website shortly. For several reasons, I really liked the Interstate 72 corridor with a starting point around Jacksonville. Unfortunately only modest moisture and a stout cap kept things from firing down there until only an hour before dark.

Initially contemplated blasting north when our first storm quickly became an orphan anvil. However, upon beginning to head north I caught visual of a new area of convection that was rock hard and beginning to anvil out again. It looked like this one stood a much better chance of breaking through the cap and was much closer than going all the way toward Macomb so we whipped it back around and got in position near Winchester. The first supercell was quickly ingested by a new storm to its south - which eventually became the Springfield tornado producer.

Caught a fantastic classic microburst during the early stages of the storm which probably caused some damage near Manchester.

We were likely between 1-3 miles from the Springfield tornado and did not see it. Why? We were essentially hook slicing on I-72 entering Springfield and the tornado passed *right* behind us. We were experiencing northerlies for a time, and I commented that it looked "interesting" out my window facing south, but while traveling down the interstate at night time there was no way I would see a tornado immediately behind us. It was not until we were rounding the east side of Springfield that we heard the confirmed report and pulled over to have a look. Sirens sounding and inflow winds howling, we couldn't see a thing. Sometimes you nail a target, get on the storm, are only a mile or so from a tornado, and you still don't see it because of dumb luck, low light, and having your back turned for safety reasons.



IMG_5068_stitch by Andrew Pritchard, on Flickr

IMG_5053 c by Andrew Pritchard, on Flickr

IMG_5086 c by Andrew Pritchard, on Flickr

 

[Joel Wright]

Had to work till 4, so sort of got off to a late start. Luckily for me the main show waited until after I got down into west-central IL. Made it down to near Macomb right as the lead sup decided to get serious. Watched the evolution of a new wall cloud developing out of the elongated rain-free base, and then followed it as it went on to produce the Good Hope tornado. The tornado was only visible for a short time from where I was, as it quickly wrapped itself in rain and pulled away.

Here's a few pics...

First pic is about 45mins before tornadogenesis. The sup was already very mature at this point, and had already produced a few wall clouds that didn't produce.








Time lapse at wide-angle. Around the 30 second mark you will see the new wall cloud develop out of the flat rain-free base that eventually goes on to produce the Good Hope tornado...

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Full log posted here: http://www.skydrama.net/#!March-15th-2016-Springfield-IL-Supercell-and-Microburst/csdr/56ec33350cf2420cfd5f4d1c

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Video of Hanna City tornado.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Caught two tornadoes, one just south of Warsaw, IL and another near Trivoli.

If only we had just 30 more minutes of daylight, the Trivoli tornado would have been amazing.

Full log, including video: http://www.aerostorms.com/march-15th-2016-warsaw-and-trivoli-illinois-tornadoes/

 

[Paul Hadfield]

Headed towards McDonough County but stayed south of the existing warned area as it was stale by the time I was close. Opted to stick with a new cell at Industry in the hope it would go big. Didn't do much but no complaints as the light was perfect. Stair stepping home while regrettably watching the out of reach Springfield cell, I paused for a severe complex just SE of Havana that in the early stages looked promising. You'd have thought it was a July storm for briefly going strobe in the upper levels. Tuesday is my 'Friday' so you could say "it was a good day..."

 

[Matt Magiera]

I began my chase leaving my home at 10am for a target of Macomb, IL and made it there around 1 waiting for initiation. After the tornado watch came out I drove a few miles out of town to get ahead of the developing towers to the southwest. I setup about 3 miles southwest of Macomb and started livestreaming on Periscope as the first couple supercells began really developing. I let the first storm that would eventually produce the Good Hope tornado come right up to me before it was warned, and it had a well defined wall cloud and a couple brief funnels before it looked to become too high based. I was in a good spot for the already tornado warned storm to catch up to me, so I decided to wait a little and see what would happen. I hopped back in my car while livestreaming to around a thousand people at the time and drove back north of Macomb where I saw the first storm really wrap up and drop the beginnings of the Good Hope tornado to my northeast. I then drove up through the RFD and caught up to the tornado while it was fairly large north of Good Hope, and after encountering some hail in the RFD I drove north and watched the tornado pass about 300-400 yards to my left in a field next to me. It then became fairly wrapped in rain, and I drove east and lost sight of it for a minute. I got east of it and started back north and saw it again, but at the time I believed it was a second tornado but it was really just the ending of the first one. Overall this was a pretty incredible day, I chased it solo so the best shots I have are all from my livestream. I'll look through it more and see if I can pull out any better screenshots, but chasing solo it was difficult for me to keep up with the storm and get good pictures. This was my first time ever livestreaming, and I ended up with over 4,500 live viewers which was pretty incredible in my opinion. Way to start off 2016! Tornado immediately to my left on the livestream. Some of the large hail dropped by the supercell.

**I'm still reviewing some of my livestream archive and my photos and I'll edit this post with more content when I'm able to get everything together.**

Sent from my SM-N920V using Stormtrack mobile app

 

[David Buell]

My day began with work from 4am-12pm. After work I headed west from Ft Wayne originally targeting the Springfield-Jacksonville area. Once I arrived in Springfield I saw no sign of any storms going up near by and it looked quite capped. After some guidance from my peers I decided to head north toward McComb and hope that I would catch the storms moving out of MO. I lost radar for about 30 minutes in the Ashland-Havana-Table Grove areas and was starting to get nervous that I would have to intercept without radar. By the time I crossed into McDonough County I established internet connection again and saw the Tornado warned storm which was NW of Macomb at the time. Noticing strong rotation on radar I continued north on IL-41 and prepared to intercept somewhere near Bushnell. About 2 miles south of Bushnell I notice what I believed to be a large tornado to my left. I have now confirmed that it was indeed the tornado I saw. It was visible for maybe 20-30 seconds from my view point and was quickly buried in rain. After being overly excited for a few minutes I decided to go east on IL-9 thinking that the new cell near Macomb would produce. I raced to stay ahead of the hail core and got in position once I found an open area west of Canton. The storm showed some rotation but at this point the main action was north of me as more tornadoes were in progress up by Trivoli. I continued east to Peoria but decided not to stay with the then tornado warned storm. I was then heading home and trying to stay ahead of the storms but between Bloomington and Champaign another supercell was approaching me being warned on for 2'' hail. Thankfully I stayed ahead of that storm and avoided the hail. Definitely the best chase I have been on so far and a chase I will never forget. Just wish I was north of Bushnell instead of south so I could have gotten a better view of the tornado. The only photo I took of the tornado was blurry and did not turn out well which is one downer to the day but I am satisfied with how everything unfolded.

 

[Winston Wells]

I started my season by shamelessly chasing the HRRR-predicted tail end storm near my home of Jacksonville, IL. I had to teach an evening class, so I was on an extremely tight leash in terms of time and distance. After watching an initial attempt southwest of town struggle against the cap, I moved a bit further south to near Woodson, IL where I had a nice view of the start of what would become the storm that would later produce the Curran-Springfield tornado. The view here is to the southwest:


I then shifted back north and positioned myself a bit west of Jacksonville and waited for the storm to approach. The next three photos also look southwest and show the storm's base over Winchester, IL in the minutes before it merged with a newer, more robust storm just to the south.


I then drove back to the I-72 exit in South Jacksonville and let what was left of the northern storm's core pass over me with a few minutes of pea-sized hail. Jacksonville's sirens were still wailing as I walked into my class of freaked-out college students - a first for me. This was a short and enjoyable chase that easily exceeded my limited expectations.

 

[Joe Pudlik]

Ended up on the supercell that tracked from SW of Jacksonville, IL on northeast up towards Kankakee well after dark. Witnessed the Curran/Springfield tornado, along with a few other wall clouds/funnel clouds.

Full chase log here... http://www.turbulentstorm.com/blog/march-15th-2016-c-illinois-chase