2026-04-02 REPORTS: IA/IL/WI/IN/MI

[Luke Penney]

Andy and I targeted an isolated supercell that formed in the dry slot in south-central Iowa and traveled northeast to until it passed Iowa City, where it got absorbed into a line of storms as they caught up with it. This was very likely the storm of the day, being a supercell that remained isolated longer than any other, and certainly had the most reports that I saw in Spotter Network and mPING.

While there was a dramatic RFD front, visibility was often tricky, due to rain and low contrast. (And, uh, getting into the hail core. Whoops.)

Between West Branch and West Liberty, the storm produced a funnel cloud - or quite possibly my first tornado! The SPC has a report of a "rope tornado on the ground" at 4:44 PM, and one of my first photos of the "funnel cloud" was at 4:45 PM.


The consolation prize for not knowing for sure if this was a tornado is lot of impressive storm views. (Neither my phone camera nor my DSLR camera really did justice to them, but here's a selection of photos anyway, some of which I was admittedly a little lazy about editing.)

 

[Pravin Gupta]

I also chased the dry slot in south central Iowa. An isolated cell formed ahead of the line of storms south of Ottumwa. Had a nice wall cloud and couplet at times. Intercepted a tornado forming near Richland, chased it to Washington, but the storms were moving 40-50 miles per hour, eventually the linear mess overtook, and I called it a day. Total chase time was four hours, the meso passed over Hills, Iowa about ten miles south of Iowa City. Overall successful early spring chase.

 

[Luke Penney]

A video from another storm chaser shows the funnel I saw going all the way to the ground into a slight debris cloud - confirmation it was a tornado!

 

[Luke Penney]

I also chased the dry slot in south central Iowa. An isolated cell formed ahead of the line of storms south of Ottumwa. Had a nice wall cloud and couplet at times. Intercepted a tornado forming near Richland, chased it to Washington, but the storms were moving 40-50 miles per hour, eventually the linear mess overtook, and I called it a day. Total chase time was four hours, the meso passed over Hills, Iowa about ten miles south of Iowa City. Overall successful early spring chase.

You caught a different tornado than us. I suspected earlier that was the case given the timing and appearance of the two - that my tornado was a separate cycle of the supercell rather than the rope-out phase of your tornado. I found that Team Domintor's livestream clearly shows them as separate events, at 2:13:00 and 2:45:35:

 

[Pravin Gupta]

Luke, you are right. I was just south on the tail of this cell. This particular storm recycled a few times as it rapidly moved NE. It seems like the last rope tornado near West Branch was the last tornado it produced.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I couldn't muster the motivation to blast north. It looks like subsidence limited all areas of this event. The main wave came in early and was slow to depart, as was its precip and cloud deck. I pinned my hopes on the evening cells down here in the western STL metro. CAMs were insistent on a 2-3 hour period of supercells. We did have the CAPE and low-level shear to support that. In the end, convection just couldn't sustain down here. Updrafts were skinny, anemic and high-based despite their reflectivity looking hopeful. This example in Troy, MO at around 5:30PM was typical.