4/25/08 Reports:TX, IL, WI, IA

[Chris Lott]

Let me start with this-. After analyzing sat and surface data, it was apparent that the front was approaching the C.TX. area, which is where I thought storms would form along the front. After clearing in the morning, temps shot up to 80, with td's around 70. Instability was high, and was waiting for the show to begin. I headed out around 1:30, getting on I-35 North, where towers were already viewable going up in Dallas Co. I shot to the southern tip of Johnson Co. near Grandview to take some pics of the rock hard updrafts that were going up. Stupid me, I didn't check my batteries before I left, and they were dead. Shot all the way back home to pick up another set, (should have checked them as well,) and make my way back on to I-35 North again. I exit just south of Hillsboro to get some shots of updraft exploding in front of me, uh, no. It's apparent now pics are out of the question, and I'm really getting mad now. With no camera, and storm approaching N. Hill Co. looking like it's about to go nuts, I can't bear to watch anymore, so I head home. I get home, and my wife tells me she's taking my 4 year old to the ER, because he's got a bad stomach virus, and running a high fever. She leaves, and I'm a home with my 9 year old, standing on the front porch about to vomit myself watching all this go down the tubes. I load up my 9 year old and head for the ER, completely oblivious to the action now taking place ahead of me. I get back on I- 35 south, and turn on the McLennan Co. weather net on my ham radio. Net control comes on with a tornado warning for Hill Co., , and rotation being reported on I-35 near the Brazos River, right where I'm headed! I blast through heavy rain and nickle to quarter size hail. As I clear the rain, I noticed a lowering on the east side of I-35, with scud rising but could not make out any rotation. This is where I had to make my exit to head to the hospital, encountering more hail. I'm all but irate, borderline insane at this point, and go into the ER lobby to see on t.v. the beast that is now the Bell Co. storm. By the time we left the ER, it was too late to try to catch the Bell Co. storm, where reports were coming through the net of a confirmed tornado. All in all, got to see some nice structure today, and missed what turned out to be a beutiful supercell in Bell. Co. by about 30 minutes. I hope to find something from Lon Curtis, who lives in Bell Co., to see if he got anything today.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Seems pointless to have two separate threads for today, so any chance we can add Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin to this as well?

Didn't have high hopes for today but actually wound up having some fun. Long story short, went to western Illinois and intercepted a severe line near Havana Illinois in Schuyler County. Then dropped southeast to Springfield where an isolated storm blossomed between there and Jacksonville. Quickly went severe and I plotted an intercept near Farmingdale. Storm was obviously pretty outflow dominant so I just let it roll me with 60 mph winds and dime sized hail for about 10 minutes.

Storm went tornado warned as I dropped south through construction in Springfield, but I got back ahead of things in western Sangamon County by punching back through it from the back end on Interstate 72. Things were obviously lining out by that point so I just stay ahead of it for lightning photos.

While not a tornadic day, it wound up being a decent outing during the last couple hours. Had actually called it a bust before the Springfield cell flared up from nothing.

Here are a couple still photos... I'll throw a video of the core experience up later.

Springfield tornado warned outflow...

Lightning shots later after the squall line got going.

 

[Randy Denzer]

Belton Tornado

Josh Jans and myself watched the line develop around Waco at 4:30 and decided to go drive in some rain. We picked up Sam Furman in Cedar Park. After great discussion, we decided to shoot north to Temple instead of northwest to catch "South end Charlie". We were convinced we were going to go see some rain and then come home to go get some wings at Hooters. As we arrived in the Belton area, David Douglas called us to let us know the cell coming into town was T-warned. We shot west on 190 and was able to see a nice clear wall cloud approaching. We turned east to get ahead of it and stay out of the hail. We got hung up at the intersection of 190 and 35 by people panicing in their vehicles to the sound of the tornado sirens. Everyone was sitting still waiting to go under the overpasses. We were able to hop a curb and get around the traffic and get to the east side of Belton to stop and look back with a fairly clear view of the cell. We did have an incredible view of a great wall cloud with a lowering and rotation we did not see a funnel at his point. David Douglas informed us there were reports of power flashes and I thought I saw a transformer blow and this could have been what was seen by others. We were able to stay ahead of the storm while we moved to the east but the incredible number of curious onlookers really slowed our chase. The storm really came to life as it went to the southeast of Belton and we were able to stop and get some great shots of a couple of spin-ups. We shot south on 95 after being stopped at a passing train that was going 1.5 miles an hour. We again stopped and watched what appeared to be our first funnel cloud of the day (And we thought it would just rain). We then ran into Aaron Dooley and we both chased the cell as it moved to the south. We went through Holland and the cell started to dissipate. After a last ditch effort to go east and get ahead of the cell we broke off the chase and got swamped trying to punch it to get home. We did get into quarter size hail and some 40-50 MPH winds. Had some wings and watched the storm roll into Austin. We will try to get some pictures up tomorrow.

 

[Jason Montano]

I got off work at 5:00pm after watching storms build along the front for about an hour. I halled over to Belton, TX which was South of an approaching Sup. I tried for about a half hour to get a good vantage point and ended up around Belton Dam. Then I decided to head a bit north and moved over to SR317. I got a couple of miles N of Belton when I saw a large wall cloud approaching. There were a number of areas with rotation at this point. I then started receiving golf ball size hail and decided to displace to the south. As I was heading south I saw a fantastic wall cloud developing, the nicest I have seen since the Hebron/Hallam Wallcloud/Tornado in 2004, unfortunately I did not get any pictures of it. This wall cloud put out a couple of funnels and had rotation that nearly touched down. It actually may have and I just couldn't see it because of the trees. I continued to stay ahead of the storm to Little River/ Academy, TX and down south past Holland, TX. Then I got a lot of outflow from the storm and I started slowly working my way towards home. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to get my cameras from home so I only have a couple of crappy phone pictures. However, it was nice to get a good local chase in.

North of Belton, TX at a large Wall Cloud.

South of Holland, TX looking to the North at a Large area of rotation.

 

[John Farley]

I had an enjoyable chase today from Center, MO (southwest of Hannibal) to Springfield, IL, on SVR-warned storms all the way. There appear to have been two embedded HP supercell type structures in the squall line, the first of which moved from Mexico, MO to north of Jacksonville, IL (and may have continued on to result in hail and a tornado warning near Lincoln, IL) and the second from south of Jacksonville to just northwest of Springfield. I kind of switched from the first to the second of these cells near Jacksonville; keeping ahead of them was a challenge to say the least with reported movement anywhere from 40-75 mph. Going through Pittsfield, I literally could see the wall of water 2 blocks behind me, and thought I was about to be swallowed up, but somehow I got out of town and back ahead. Both cells produced up to quarter sized hail, and the second one (which is the same one Andrew was on) also a couple 60 mph wind reports. I will post a full report and more pics on my Web sites hopefully tomorrow, but in the meantime here are a couple pics:

LEWP/likely meso structure on the first storm, from Pike Co, IL a few miles NE of Louisiana, MO

From a few miles east of Jacksonville, IL, looking southwest

 

[Joel Wright]

Well, I didn't get home from my interview until almost 5. So the show had already started out in eastern Iowa. By that time the cells were weakening a bit and screaming northeast. The storms to my south and west looked like crap. Lots of little multi-cell clusters. Jeremy got to my house around 5:30 or so. We watched the radar closely hoping something chaseable would develop.

Finally, a storm rapidly strengthened as it passed literally right over us in Erie. It was rather discrete and had no other competition from other storms east or south of it. So we hopped in Jeremy's truck and followed it northeast. It had a very large rainfree base on the south side, with a long flanking band of towering cumulus extending all the way south. At times there were a few ragged features beneath the RF base, but were nothing more than scud unfortunately.

Chased this cell all the way to Rock Falls when it became apparent it wasn't going to produce. That impressive flanking line of towering cumulus were now exploding into thunderstorms, essentially choking off our cell.

As soon as we turned around and headed back west we hit the powerful cold front. When we left my house it was 69 degrees, and when we got back an hour or so later it was already down to 52!

 

[Skip Talbot]

Showed up late to a bust chase. Log and pictures if anyone is bored out of their mind:
http://www.skip.cc/chase/080425/

 

[Adam Lucio]

Chased with Matt Fischer and his buddy from COD [sorry I forgot your name!]

Started off down I-80 with an initial target of Galesburg, live conditions would bring us into Iowa where we first observed the tornado warned cell at the Iowa-80 truck stop. Noticed a wall cloud like lowering, but this storm was an HP beast and not visually friendly. We followed it and got in a better position around New Liberty. A tornado had been reported and we could see a wall cloud with a well defined RFD notch/clear slot wrapping in behind it. We were a bit too far from it to observe anything at ground level.

It became apparent that the storm was nearing the end of its life so we decided to head back east. We stopped in Rock Falls, IL with one of two options in our mind. We would wait if anything new and discrete went up or wait and let the line overtake us and mess with the wind/hail.

Met up with Danny Neal and his father there, chatted with the locals as they knew we were chasers when people in the McDonalds alerted our attention to something outside. We went outside and ended up observing what was probably the same storm Joel Wright departed from and then this debatable funnel.

So we were back on the chase, this storm was booking almost due north it seemed, had an impressive yet not ideal look on radar, had a nice base to it and produced some very suggestive lowerings, but after about 20 minutes it got too far ahead of us given the roads and terrain along the rock river. Given that and the apparent weakening on radar we decided to ditch it and challange the OF-ish stuff to the south as we head for home.

Overall an exciting chase, it was nice to able to see some daytime structures and be reminded that not all storms form at dusk/night. Amazing what a few hours of clearing can do, and another reminder why i don't let SPC outlooks deter me from chasing.

Lowering on the tornado warned storm near New Liberty, IA

another lowering on the storm as we left Rock Falls, IL

Nice shelf feature on a non severe OF-ish storm.

 

[Danny Neal]

Initially was thinking Rochelle-Sterling area would be the place to be. So we set off west toward I 39 on I 80. When we got to La Salle, decided to continue west and stopped in Princeton, IL for lunch and gas. Upon eating there, the storms in IA started getting TOR warned. I didn't commit to anything as of yet because I was hoping discrete cells near Quincy would keep heading NE at my location. Finally as a few confirmed tornadoes started coming across the live coverage from Iowa City, I said the hell with it and darted west along 80. Got to the river and noticed a very dark sky to the SW -W - NW. Got to the Eldridge. IA and had to decide whether to dip down on I-280 for the Muscatine Cell or up 61 to the New Liberty storm. Thought we could get the northern cell, and be in position to intercept the southern storm near Clinton, IA.

Left over ragged wall cloud from the first supercell.

Above picture was taken from Dewitt, IA on US 30 as the now garbage tornado warned supercell continued north of us.

We kept heading west on US 30 through Clinton, IA, and Morrison, IL, until we met up with Adam Lucio, Matt Fischer and Dan Hobson in Rock Falls, IL. As Adam said previously we grabbed a bite to eat and such and saw that this interesting feature.

Notice how outflow-y it looked.

Here is the feature of interest. It is a good lookalike if not truly a funnel.

0610 PM FUNNEL CLOUD 5 N ROCK FALLS 41.84N 89.71W
04/25/2008 WHITESIDE IL PUBLIC

REPORTED AT THE INTERSECTION OF IL HWY 40 AND FULFS RD.
RELAYED BY ILLINOIS STATE PATROL.Report at the time of the picture from NWS DVN.

Overall it was a decent chase, got cored 4 different times from non-severe storms on the way home with some small hail and what not.

Rest of the pics are here: http://s119.photobucket.com/albums/o124/ILSvrWxTorChsr/04 27 08 IL and IA Supercells/
Will post youtube vids later

 

[John Farley]

I have now posted my full chase report at:

http://www.johnefarley.com/chase42508.htm

There are quite a few more photos in addition to the ones I posted above, and a much more detailed account of the chase, along with some of my thoughts on why the storms I was on behaved as they did.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

I threw up a quick compressed youtube video of my two intercepts near Havana and Farmingdale/Springfield.

The second storm I did submit the report of 60 mph winds and dime hail west of Springfield. The Springfield airport made me look smart by measuring a gust of exactly 60 a couple miles down the road.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sAR8zip9iLg

Actually got hit again by the bow echo near Champaign but didn't think much of the gust front, however I saw the Champaign airport reported a 67 mph wind gust and I was parked on a gravel road leading to the airport. I was too busy shielding myself with my car door trying to get a few more lightning shots before the rain.

Okay, I got my wind fix for 2008, time for some spinning.

 

[Brandon Sullivan]

Well headed out after school, with an initial target of Galesburg, IL... On the way, it was obvious things were going further N. So I called the chase buddy and said, meet in Galesburg,then we will go north.. we headed north, in search of the Tor warned storm near DVN.. but it took a turn north once we got close then it died..

Headed home after that..

Bummer.. O well, refreshing after lookn at 4-8 day.. lol

 

[Jim Zandonai]

After returning from vacation on WED and having the luxury of happening to be still be off work I was able to view the event from here at home. Fortunately for me the storms were heading right toward me at high speed so I decided to just stay put..Good thing. Recorded and observed 1.20 inches of rain in 35 minutes in the A.M. Then in the afternoon a strong cell approached RFD and was headed directly for me..it looked to spike at 70 dbz and I recorded 1.25 inch hail..while just a couple miles east golfball size hail was reported and a 45 mph gust was recorded..but nothing on the severe end as far as wind went. The storm was moving at 50mph so it didn't last too long ..
Later more storms came in an produced some heavy rain and okay cloud structure but nothing to0 impressive structure-wise.
Posted a few pics ..nothing great and the hail pic is blurred due to being in a hurry..
So it was a cool..non chase day since the storms came to me all day and besides that nothing else really worth going after around here close to me ..
Cant wait for the later Spring /Summer storms and since they usually aren't moving at50-60mph should get some good chases out of it.