2025-05-20 REPORTS: IL/IN/AR/TN/KY

[Dan Robinson]

This day was a deja-vu closely resembling my May 15 chase. I had decided on targeting this system close to home instead of the more potent environment down south in Kentucky and Tennessee. Vorticity near the surface low and a warm front would be the main players in Illinois. The warm front was slightly more favored for tornadoes, but was another 2 hours away, and I wasn't feeling like it was quite enough to be worth having a 4-5 hour drive home afterward. I instead settled for the much closer cold frontal cells that would be firing along I-55 about 60-90 minutes from home.

I started out watching new convection try to get going near Litchfield. This didn't last, so I headed up to Springfield to intercept a string of three supercells that had been rapidly strengthening. The northernmost two weakened as I approached them on the north side of Springfield. This was the middle cell in the line just west of Sherman as it was becoming outflow dominant:



The southernmost storm was maintaining strength and prompted several tornado warnings. So, mirroring the May 15 chase sequence, I stayed ahead of the storm eastward along I-72. While the RFD surges were strong, inflow at the surface was weak and the storm remained outflow dominant. Despite the constant warnings, I didn't see any signs of it being close to producing a tornado while I was on it. This is looking west in front of the storm at Buffalo:



While storm speeds weren't crazy today, they were fast enough that I couldn't stop for very long. After the storm's character hadn't changed in 40 minutes, I finally decided to let it go south of Latham with this view looking north:



Another supercell was organizing to the southeast over Decatur, and it appeared to be the next in line to become dominant:



This new storm was high-based and didn't have any look of organizing much in the low levels. I expected it to just be a repeat of the last one. Since following it farther would just lengthen my drive home for just more of the same, I decided the continued pursuit would not be worth it. I turned toward home at 3:30pm, bringing an early end to the chase day and this recent string of active severe weather in the Plains and Midwest.

 

[Taylor French]

This day rounded out my mid May chase trip to Oklahoma of which the highlight was Arnett on the 18th. I had to be back home in Chicagoland for work on Wed May 21. It was very convenient having this event as entertainment on my way home from OK, as it is normally quite a long slog home from the prime Plains chase territory (for reference OKC is roughly the same driving distance from home as the major cities on the east coast, NYC, Philly, DC). I arrived to my target of Springfield just as the storms were firing. After first going to Berlin immediately west of Springfield I decided it would be best to reposition to the east side of the city so I wouldn't be caught up in the urban area. I went to the Buffalo exit and got this shot there (presumably about the same time as Dan above).


I followed it east and then slightly north between Niantic and Latham and captured this shot there. It apparently dropped a brief tornado about 5 mins after this shot according to SPC storm reports although I did not observe it.


I then repositioned ahead to just north of Monticello where I captured this final image.


As it turns out I have relatives that I am close to that live a couple miles away from this last stop and given that the storm didn't show too much short term promise I called the chase and went over to spend the rest of the evening visiting with them (and given the proximity was just fine to not have a significant tornado) and then made the quick 2 hr journey home. When one storm chases, you often don't exactly know where you are going to end up and it was really nice for this storm to deposit me so close to family, especially after being out in the Plains where I don't have many friends or family to visit. This chase definitely fit in the category of modest expectations and delivery but yet logistically fit in perfectly so was still a fun day out.