I went on another weekend chase yesterday. Drove to West Virginia and stayed Thursday night, then spent most of the day Friday driving west to Mount Vernon, IL, my initial target for the day. Ran into the same problem John did in southeast Illinois - zero clouds, strong WSW winds and dry air. In fact, I first noticed this around Louisville, KY, but for whatever reason I continued to drive west ignoring what the sky was telling me.
The big IL/IN cells were getting started good when I was 50 miles into Illinios. Somewhere around 5:30 central time I guess it finally dawned on me that nothing was gonna fire anywhere near where I was. After a short debate on whether to just turn around and go back home or go after the stuff in northeast Illinois, I decided to chase, since I had already driven that far anyways what's another 300 miles. Finally intercepted a big supercell (filled almost a county with purple on the Baron) just west Plainfield, IN 30-45 minutes after dark. Sat up position just south of the wall, which looked to be on the eastern edge of the updraft, with the rain/hail core immediately to its right. Stayed at that location for about 5 minutes when the leading edge of the RFD winds started coming in from the north. I had enough time to drive west 1/2 mile, do a U turn, drive east a mile and then drive south for a half mile before the real RFD hit me. And it was strong, I'd agree with Andrew on the 80mph estimate, that's exactly what I was thinking. While I was on the ramp to I 70W a gust moved my Cherokee to the left edge of the ramp pavement, and about a quarter mile down I-70 another gust blew me from the right lane to a foot or two in the left lane before I could steer to account for it. Glad the only car I could see had already gone by me. After driving at 30mph I finally got out of it a little over a mile farther down the interstate. I turned around 6 or 7 miles later at the next exit and then chased the storm down Hwy 144 going southeast until 144 intersected I-65. While I was still on I-70 driving back east I caught a few glimpses of either a large funnel about half way down in the direction of southern Indianapolis, or an odd funnel shaped wall cloud. It was relatively wide at the top and snaked to a point halfway down. I could only get a glimpse of the feature a few times while passing open fields. Camcordered in that general direction while I drove down 144, but don't think anything showed up (haven't looked at the tape yet) since by that time the storm was in a weakening stage. The storm went from constant lightning while it was still northwest of Indinapolis to hardly any flashes at all after it passed south in Indy - the time I was filming.
First thing I did when I walked in the door was look at the SPC reports and then Stormtrack reports. Glad to know some folks were on that storm during daylight while it was dropping tornadoes. I was cussing myself at that time while still 120 miles SSW of it, :lol:
