2017-04-10 REPORTS: IL/IN

[Ethan Schisler]

I chased the long track supercell that developed NW of Macomb, IL and eventually dissipated near the IL/IN border.


Incipient supercell in Fulton County, IL....taken from my Iphone 7+

I got on the storm initially outside of Cuba, IL where I noticed a large rotating wall cloud and a possible funnel cloud. I had to punch the RFD core because of poor road options and encountered quarter size hail. It appears I skirted the extremely large hail as there were reports of nearly BASEBALL size hail just to the north outside of Canton, IL.





I included some radar grabs for perspective. The largest hail we saw during the chase was probably 1 to maybe 1.25" in diameter. We certainly lucked out when it came to skirting that huge hail core.

That is some seriously large hail for Illinois. Part of me regrets staying ahead of it, and just core punching it to see such large hail. Anyway we followed the storm further east to near Glasford where it tried to wrap up again, however surface winds weren't favorable for near storm inflow to have tornadogenesis in my opinion.

HP supercell with partial RFD cut near Glasford, IL. There was hail up to tennis ball size behind that!!

I got I-474 and followed it east to near Roanoke in Woodford County where I decided it probably wasn't going to produce a tornado and I headed home, getting back to my house by 5:30PM. Overall an excellent chase day, given what I expected. My target panned out, 1 single beasly supercell formed and tracked for a long time in an isolated fashion. Just would have been nice to have it spit a couple out, because it was such a beautiful storm.

I got this image earlier in this morning hours when a series of elevated severe thunderstorms pushed across the area around 4AM. Made for some beautiful lightning photography....

 

[Dan Robinson]

After an evening of dominant left splits, a few marginal supercells finally took shape east of I-55 at sunset. I caught up to one near Venedy, IL as it made one brief attempt at wrapping up. A couple of images:

http://stormhighway.com/blog2017/april1117a.php

 

[B Faletti]

Headed out the door from my house near Peru, IL and meandered south down IL-89 to Washington. I then wanted to give it some more time to organize, driving to just east of Eureka where I stopped and waited for some friends from NIU who were still on their way down I-39. We all sat to watch the base come gradually closer. In the distance, we saw some rapid motion for a couple minutes under the base, and saw what looked to be a funnel, and indeed a report of a funnel came in. It was too distant and short notice for any of us to document it. As the supercell came closer, it was cycling, showing some meager structure that soon morphed into a rotating wall cloud with RFD just to its south. It drew near, so we booked it east through El Paso and towards Pontiac, where I called it off. Encountered hail up to half dollars as I drove right under the weakening base and into the core.

Very satisfying local chase, especially considering we decided to cap bust in Iowa the day before. Nice supercell despite unidirectional wind profiles, and only an hour from home.

 

[Chuck Haskin]

I was a little late to the party, arriving about a mile west of Secor, IL at 4 PM.