2016-09-09 REPORTS: IL/IN

[Dan Robinson]

I witnessed a likely tornado on Friday near Irvington, IL with power flashes under a rotating wall cloud. I also experienced my closest lightning strikes in many years - enough to give me a headache from two open-window thunder blasts from GSs at a couple hundred feet. My chase report and video is at the following link:

http://stormhighway.com/blog2016/sept1016a.php

 

[Ethan Schisler]

I hadn't been paying attention to the weather for this day, much to my dismay it looked fairly decent by late morning. However the fly in the ointment was I had an appointment in Peoria at 2:30PM. I wasn't sure if I could get out in time or not to chase. Luckily for me, I arrived early and was able to leave by 2:15. I headed south down I-55 and then eventually south of Decatur toward the Vandalia area along I-70. Because I originally had no intention of chasing this day, I had very little with me as far as cameras go (only my Iphone 6). I got on the first storm near Vandalia and followed it east. Observed a couple of wall clouds and several occlusions, the motion originally wasn't anything I would consider tornadic as it struggled at the low levels with rotation. Eventually though we did observe quite a bit of rotation as it was south of St Elmo.

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Supercell with wall cloud 2E of Vandalia along Highway 40

I got to I-57 when I let this cell go for an ongoing cell northeast of Effingham. Thanks to I-70 and slow storm motions, I was able to quickly get to this cell arriving from the back-side in time to see a well defined funnel cloud halfway to the ground 3 miles W of Greenup, IL. We did observe VERY brief ground circulation under this funnel (lasting several seconds tops). Originally I wasn't certain in it touching down, so I only reported it as a funnel cloud (to avoid any false reports). I thought maybe as it was occluding it would fully condense, but the rotatational velocity of it, just appeared too weak for it do anything more than what it did. I followed this particular cell east as shortly after my funnel encounter, it picked up a tornado warning. We noted several other occlusions and new mesocyclones, although low level rotation appeared to be significantly lacking.

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3W Greenup, IL Funnel with brief ground circulation

In addition, despite the NWS confirming an EF-0 tornado S of Casey, IL, I didn't really see anything for myself there as I was right under it. At least anything more than a wall cloud with lazy motion and rising scud. I called the chase near the town of Martinsville, IL and headed for home. Overall a decent chase, I would rate it a 6/10. Missing the significant tornado near Champaign hurts a little bit, but its hard to complain when you get on 2 nice looking supercells, see a funnel cloud (likely brief tornado), and don't have to deal with any precipitation or rainwrapping, nor many other chasers clogging the road.

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Occlusion (likely non-tornadic) 1 SE of Casey, IL. New wall cloud forming to the right. I didn't note anything tornadic here despite ILX confirming a brief EF-0 tornado.


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~Crappy~ cell phone pano of the back-side of the storm near Martinsville, IL.

My photos are pretty low quality, like I said all I had was my phone. And I didn't wanna risk my car getting broken into, in downtown Peoria sitting there lol. I do regret not having the DSLR especially for the late evening structure/lightning on the back-side of the storm which was pretty good. And this was a rather last minute chase too, which I ended up traveling 629 miles round-trip (not so local eh?) lol

 

[Paul Hadfield]

Heading south for the initial development moving out of the STL area, impressive structure at Vandalia where I had a Dan Robinson moment.


Continuing south to pause at Salem for an unsuccessful lightning attempt. Still a cool scene or so I thought...


Continuing even further south, caught what remained of the Irvington storm near Kell as it cashed out into a beautiful blue hour 'supershelf'. It was here the property owner rolled up on his ATV and offered me a beer while we chatted about his concern over potential bean damage. I politely declined for having to make the long drive home. In retrospect, it might've helped smooth the regret of leaving the Vandalia storm as well as missing the Champaign county activity.