2025-05-15 REPORT: MI

[Bobby Little]

Tageted SW corner MI. I thought the squall line crossing to the north of me out of Wisc. would loose strength over cold Lk. Mich. so i was hoping to catch discrete cells skirting the bottom of the lake from IN/IL. It became apparent the those cells were loosing steam and the squall line was the target but later than expected. I dont chase in the dark.Next move was to get in front and to get home.I basically had to outrun multiple nocturnal tornado indicated and observeds all the way down I-94. A semi was flipped minutes after reaching Lansing area and almost made it home before i punched through the Squall line a few miles from home. A real bust!

 

[Dan Robinson]

Outflow from the AR/southern MO MCS did end up making it to the STL metro, so I bailed north to I-72 in central Illinois. I stayed ahead of the supercell that tracked along the Interstate to Decatur. Noted small dust plume along the RFD gust front that was reported as a tornado, but it did not look to me like it was rotating and was in the wrong place. Dropped south to intercept a couple other updrafts as they weakened. A short 6-hour chase - left at 4PM and got home at 10.

Full chase log here:

May 2025 Storm Chasing Recap

 

[Andy Wehrle]

@Bobby Little, can IL/WI be added to this thread title?

A late report, since after that catch my May 18th stuff took precedence, but three days prior to that I chased the setup locally in southern Wisconsin.

I left the house in Madison planning to intercept storms as they matured north and east of the city, as seemed to be the general consensus from the convection-allowing models as to how the day would play out. I targeted a storm that seemed to be getting its act together near Arlington/Poynette, with a subtle (severe thunderstorm, but not tornado-warned) velocity couplet on radar. I pushed east on County Rd. CS/Q out of Poynette, then north on WIS-22 and east again on County Rd. B as this area of interest came up from the south toward the road in front of me, and found a rather ominous-looking wall cloud. I followed this to the northeast as best I could, getting my last view of it along WIS-16 between Rio and Doylestown. At this point it looked like my storm was about to be absorbed into the forward flank of a much larger one coming up rapidly from the south-southwest.

I pushed east and attempted to shelter at a gas station in Fall River as I began to be pelted with hail, but all the space under the pump canopy was already occupied by other drivers who had the same idea. It was at this time the tornado warning went out for the new storm, then located just east of Columbus, and I raced after it. I made it through Columbus and onto US-151 east, but exited just before Beaver Dam. It was at this time the rotation abruptly ramped up and produced the tornadoes over Juneau, about 7 miles to my east. With a wall of rain and hail between me and the action area, and no good way to catch up without plowing through it, I called off the chase near the town of Leipsig, getting smacked by more hail on the very back edge of the storm.