6/06/08 REPORTS: MO/IL/IN/MI/OH

[John Farley]

Like some people said after chasing yesterday in the plains, it's not easy keeping up with HP supercells moving 50 mph. I intercepted a couple of those today on the southeast fringes of the STL area. Both were TOR-warned, and there were a handful of reports of brief touchdowns with both.

Wall cloud and possible funnel cloud with the first storm:

Note the bridge below the wall cloud. This is the Jefferson Barracks Bridge, the main crossing of the Mississippi on the south side of the St. Louis metro area. This picture was taken looking northwest from the west edge of Columbia, IL. A couple Missouri spotters near the wall cloud reported funnel clouds around this time, and trees were blown down on a house and a garage. This meso reportedly produced brief touchdowns later in the Collinsville and St. Jacob, IL areas. It is very fortunate that it did not do more, as it moved for a long distance over densely-populated areas in the southern and eastern suburbs of St. Louis.

Wall cloud from the second storm over Waterloo, IL:

This picture was taken looking northwest from a couple miles east of Waterloo. Note what may be a funnel just to the right of the wall cloud - I couldn't tell, but wouldn't be surprised, as there were a couple reports a few minutes earlier of a tornado with this storm 4 or 5 miles to the southwest of its location when this photo was taken.

I tried to chase the first storm a little but could not keep up. The second one wrapped up in rain and disappeared very quickly after this picture, and I had to bail to keep ahead of the wet RFD.

I will post a more detailed account of this chase on my Web site when time permits.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

I took part of the afternoon off today from work in hopes that we'd get something Severe. When I left around 1pm, I wasn't very hopeful at seeing anything more than a boring wind event.

Turns out we had some discrete cells, and lots of wind damage. I chased towards Grand Rapids and then south into Barry County. I was on the Tornado Warned cell with VIL's over 70, however there wasn't any hail to be found. Just a lot of wind.

Everything today was moving at extremely fast speeds, and after the first storms rolled through Barry County, there was no getting east fast. Every road I drove down for about a half hour had a tree across so that I was unable to proceed. I also ended up in a not-so-friendly road network area. Everything ended up screaming away from me and so I called it a night.

I took some video which I've posted at http://www.severestudios.com/June-6-2008-Barry-County-Wind-Damage-Video and a couple pictures at http://www.wx8ben.com/chasepictures/v/20080606/ - The pictures came out blurry because the muggy air was playing lots of tricks with my lens.

 

[Jim Zandonai]

This afternoon I saw a couple cells developing in Ogle County in North IL.. the cells were racing NE so I had to get ready and book eastward on HWY 20 for an intercept east of Belvidere IL..
I got the backside of it barely and got some beautiful shots of it as it was still strengthening.. I headed back west and since I dont have my laptop tethered to a cell phone yet or aircard ..had to try and get a Wi-FI.. Right. Well I managed to by pulling off and saw another storm heading between RFD and Belvidere..So I headed back on 20 and sat at a mobile Gas station..Good thing I was on E.
The storm came up rapidly from the SW at around 55mph..It was looking good and developed what I first thought was a shelf cloud but was wall cloud..
Should have been looking for one to begin with since there was a Tornado watch out anyway. The cell moved closer and saw the rain hail shaft..then got blasted with 55mph winds I estimated and heavy rain .It was over in like 10 minutes or less.. Then a Tornado Warning went out for Radar showing Strong Rotation.. I called in my report but didnt see any rotation and by that time it was already past at that speed..later the public reported a Tornado NE of my location ..Gotta love these rocket powered cells...
More cells were moving toward RFD and the area so headed further west and just got heavy rain..later another cell was heading toward Marengo again..I didn't chase that one but could have gone back n forth on 20 all the time..
So a good fun day for us here considering everything !

 

[Joey Ketcham]

I'm rather surprised to see no mention of the tornadic storm in Cherokee County Kansas this evening under the Now thread, anyways... we had a discreet LP supercell develop in Cherokee County, KS that quickly became tornado warned. Tyler Costantini and myself was on the storm and observed a very large funnel cloud as it passed over the rural areas of Cherokee County.

A new updraft formed just north of the original that produced the earlier tornado warning and it quickly became tornado warned as it passed over Frontenac and Pittsburg, KS. Tyler and I followed the storm well into Barton County Missouri and the whole time it had persistent wall cloud with an occasional funnel.

For an unexpected chase, turned out pretty dang good.

 

[rdale]

Ben, Dan and I criss-crossed southwest and central Michigan with live video most of the time... Caught plenty of strong winds, little bit of hail, and good dose of down trees. Clinton Co (just north of Lansing) took ~100mph straightline winds which ripped a house apart and knocked a few barns flat. That part fortunately was very isolated.

My fun event of the evening... Driving on a wet gravel road about 60mph. Saw a large limb down but plenty of room to pass it on the right. As I drift right - I see that there's a power line about 3 feet off the ground right above the limb. My chasevan has no ABS, so I locked up the brakes and ended up literally no more than a foot from the power line. I doubt it was charged, so that's not my worry, but I hesitate to guess what would have happened if I'd have hit that at 60!

Damage footage

http://rdale.bholcomb.com/clintonco1.wmv

 

[Bob Hartig]

Below is a photo of a wall cloud west of my hometown of Caledonia, MI. The cloud looked better five minutes before I shot it--impressive-looking, actually, with a nice tail cloud feeding in from the rain shaft to its north, but it was pretty ouflowish.

After reporting it, I hooked up with Bill Oosterbaan and Kurt Hulst, who took his own vehicle but caravaned with us off and on. We headed east down I-96, then south down M-66 toward Battle Creek. We intercepted some likely looking storms, but they were all outflow-dominant.

Lots of wind damage. We had to turn around on one country road north of Battle Creek due to a large tree that completely blocked the road. The area around Gull Lake, where a tornado-warned storm showed decent rotation on GR3, had a lot of trees and large branches down, though I doubt any of that was due to an actual tornado. These storms just weren't putting out, but it was still a fun chase that ended with some very pretty towers in the east, and great food and beer in the more immediate vicinity of Plainwell at Arie's London Grill.

 

[Glenn Schubert]

St Louis Metro-East Storms

My chase partner and I intercepted the same storms that John Farley did, but a little farther east near the St. Clair/Clinton Co IL line. We saw the wall cloud on the first TOR Warned storm cell, but the contrast from our location was too low for a good picture. The second LP stormed tracked a little farther south and we got caught up in the core of very heavy rain. This cell produce an apparent tornado over Carlyle Lake in northern Clinton Co. We did not observe it because of the heavy rain. There were 4 or 5 HP cells that tracked along or just south of I-70 across IL into IN travelling at about 50mph. Most of these were TOR or SEV Warned all the way across IL.

 

[John Farley]

My full report is now posted at:

http://www.johnefarley.com/chase60608.htm

 

[Kurt Hulst]

My full report can be foundhttp://midwestchasers.com/blog2/