2019-03-14 REPORTS: IL/IN

[Ethan Schisler]

Had planned on chasing yesterday for a few days, however my initial plan was to go to SE IL/SW IN However the HRRR was slowing the main front down, and I noticed a lot of convection going up int he morning across the Ohio River valley. I opted to take a gamble and play up in Eastern/Northeast Illinois. I initially staged near Bloomington, IL around mid-morning. It didn't take long for storms to get going. One storm fired up near Bloomington and we tracked it up to east of Pontiac where we left it in favor of additional supercells firing back to the southwest. The storm we left went tornado warned moments later, but I already committed to the SW storms that I felt were moving into a better environment. The supercell I targeted tracked from east of Peoria up to I-39 before getting embedded in a giant mess of storms. I thought for a while we might be on the verge of seeing something good, especially as the storm was approaching from the SW and I saw the rock solid updraft. I noted a couple wall clouds and a possible funnel on this storm. The lighting ahead of the storm was amazing and if we had something touch down, it would have been extremely photogenic. There was some strong rotation for a while outside of Roanoke, IL but it simply just couldn't tighten up. Ended the chase shortly after losing it near I-39. Storm motions were simply too fast to keep up, even on the Illinois grid road network. I arrived back at home around 2:30pm. Here are a few photos from the day, nothing too impressive:

Supercell outside of Roanoke, IL


Roanoke, IL around noon.


Supercell racing past near Minonk, IL


Overall, not a bad local chase. Just wish storms hadn't been moving so fast and maybe were a little more productive. But its better than snow. So no complaints.

 

[Billy Faletti]

Targeted Dwight, IL and left home at around 9:30am knowing it would probably be an early show. Junky storms started developing right over me as I got into northern Livingston County. One storm on the southern end of the cluster appeared more intense and consolidated, soon going tornado warned. We got on it near Odell and followed it for ~10 miles before losing it to fast storm motions. Then noticed storms firing between I-55 and I-57, so we took Route 17 east to catch them as they matured northeastward. Caught 4 more cells this way, continuing straight east well into Indiana, noting a few wall clouds, some hail, but little more. We did catch a glimpse of the Lowell, IN EF0 from a distance, and didn't even know it was a tornado at the time. We'd been forced to let the storm fly to the north, but still had visual of the base as a small cone funnel protruded downward (a couple minutes later confirmed as a funnel by Matt Magiera in our chat). No documentation of it because it looked so wimpy along with terrain and distance, but at least I've got seeing a tornado in 2019 out of the way. Ended the chase in DeMotte, IN where we saw a beefy wall cloud as the storm went tornado warned.

This was a pretty good way to start off the season. It wasn't an incredible chase, but most early season days aren't this interesting. On top of seeing a 2019 tornado, it was also my first Indiana tornado and first March tornado.

Video recap of our chase:

 

[Dan Robinson]

A very strange chase day unlike any other I've had. I set my alarm for 6:30AM, expecting to have a couple hours to do a forecast before leaving for an early show to the east along the IL/IN border along I-64. I awoke to see convection already in progress just to the south and east, about 2 hours ahead of where models had it the night before. I immediately scrambled and jumped in the car to head east, making it ahead of the line at Mount Vernon shortly after sunrise. I stopped at Mill Shoals (I-64 about halfway between I-57 and the IN border) to watch a few of the individual cells race by. Everything looked like complete junk. All cold with no structure and no low-level inflow.

To the east, more precip and clouds ahead of the main line weren't doing much to sell me on that area as a target, despite the great shear in place. Furthermore, the first visible satellite images of the day revealed a large dry slot behind this main line with dewpoints in the upper 50s, and storms with lightning were already firing upstream of this in central Missouri. Low-level shear was more than adequate in central and northern IL, and with each radar scan, the Missouri storms were slowly transitioning from linear to an arc of discrete cells as they approached St. Louis.

The dry slot looked much more appealing to me as a target for all of those reasons, and in great chase terrain at that. I turned around and headed back to St. Louis, then north on I-55 to catch the middle of the three storms north of Springfield. This storm looked much more promising, with strong rising motion in a mean-looking base on the north side of the RFD punch. But even with the storm exactly paralleling I-55, I was losing ground with each brief stop to look. The storm got ahead of me at Bloomington right as it looked its best on radar. The slight uptick in intensity caused it to turn right just enough to put I-55 in its core, so the Interstate was no longer an option to keep up.

I turned east at Towanda. The storm's base still beat me across the road. It was of no consequence, because it and the storm to the south were losing intensity, looking ragged both on radar and visually. I continued east to I-57 at Paxton to look at the last two storms moving north, both were weakening and had stopped producing lightning before I reached them.

Chase over - it felt like 7pm, but the clock showed 2pm. I made it home at 5. I didn't shoot any video or pictures during this chase.

Post-chase thoughts. I was initially having a hard time believing the model indications of peak supercell/tornado potential before noon, but they were spot-on. I gave them the benefit of the doubt early, but the look of the storms in that area didn't provide enough confidence to stay. Had I waited an hour to see the rapid organization at Paducah, I would have stayed on I-64 to catch the supercells crossing in the Evansville area. From what I could tell, none of those produced anything visible. This was an unprecedented chase for me due to the timing. Prior to this, the earliest supercell/tornado chase I had embarked on was November 17, 2013 which got going at 11AM. To have one start cranking at 9AM wasn't something I was really prepared for, despite all of the the models (both medium and short range) showing it.

 

[adlyons]

Targeted Dwight, IL and left home at around 9:30am knowing it would probably be an early show. Junky storms started developing right over me as I got into northern Livingston County. One storm on the southern end of the cluster appeared more intense and consolidated, soon going tornado warned. We got on it near Odell and followed it for ~10 miles before losing it to fast storm motions. Then noticed storms firing between I-55 and I-57, so we took Route 17 east to catch them as they matured northeastward. Caught 4 more cells this way, continuing straight east well into Indiana, noting a few wall clouds, some hail, but little more. We did catch a glimpse of the Lowell, IN EF0 from a distance, and didn't even know it was a tornado at the time. We'd been forced to let the storm fly to the north, but still had visual of the base as a small cone funnel protruded downward (a couple minutes later confirmed as a funnel by Matt Magiera in our chat). No documentation of it because it looked so wimpy along with terrain and distance, but at least I've got seeing a tornado in 2019 out of the way. Ended the chase in DeMotte, IN where we saw a beefy wall cloud as the storm went tornado warned.

This was a pretty good way to start off the season. It wasn't an incredible chase, but most early season days aren't this interesting. On top of seeing a 2019 tornado, it was also my first Indiana tornado and first March tornado.

Video recap of our chase:

great video quality!