6/21/10 REPORTS: WI / IL

[Scott Weberpal]

Had a harrowing gentlemans chase near home today that turned into a situation I never want to be in again.

SPC mesoanalysis indicated a decent environment for supercells in southern Wisconsin, so I headed west toward my boyhood home of Janesville as storms began to develop in the region. The storms quickly blossomed into supercells which seemed to initially have problems containing their outflow. I followed the storm from near Milton to just east of Whitewater when darkness and poor visibility in the Kettle Moraine state forest forced me to drop south away from the storm.

I drove east on Hwy 12 then county road J south of Palmyra where I began to witness multiple power flashes to my north. Not having my laptop with me and no radio (weather or am/fm), I wasn't sure whether or not I was seeing a tornado or significant straight line winds. Shortly after witnessing the power flashes, the warning text was updated stating a damaging tornado had just hit Eagle (just east of Palmyra) and was moving directly toward Mukwonago (where I live)! At that point it was no longer a chase and became an excruciatingly nerve-wracking attempt to get to my apartment to pick up my girlfriend and blast back south out of the path of the storm.

I, along with my still drenched girlfriend as she had just got out of the shower as I called and told her to run outside to my car, drove well south of town. I gave Brandon Sullivan a call to make sure the tornadic area was past town before proceeding back north to our apartment.

As we drove back into town, it was apparent that the tornado had missed town, likely only by a mile or two to the north. Unfortunately the Village of Eagle was not so lucky and, by the sounds of it, took a direct hit. A few hours later I'm still hearing the occasional wail of sirens heading west toward Eagle which is only about 5 or so miles away.

It's amazing how much ones mindset changes when you realize your property and loved ones are in the path of a potentially strong tornado. Your only focus becomes doing everything you can to mitigate any potential harm and the storm becomes nothing more than an afterthought. Thankfully we were spared, but knowing there is significant tornado damage just down the road really puts things into a whole different perspective.

I now have a new found appreciation and understand of what was going through the minds of those chasers watching as tornadoes were bearing down on their property and families on May 10th.

 

[Brandon Sullivan]

Glad I could help Scott and definitely glad everything is alright!

On a much lighter note, here are my pictures from the western illinois supercell.. this erupted first, while I was at work, I headed west and was able to follow it for a hour or more.

Some significant rotation observed with this storm, and I think it could have been a good tornado producer, but it was lacking that strong surface flow that I have noticed is common with any good tornadic storms I have been on!

 

[Jeremy Ludin]

Glad everyone's ok Scott!

Joel Wright and I played catch up with the monster in west central IL. We caught up to it just west of Macomb and saw the fantastic structure this thing had. However, never in my LIFE have I been so scared of lightning. They were so spread out and so frequent that I felt extremely unsafe stepping foot out of the truck...not that a strike IN the truck would have fared much better. It tried wrapping up numerous times backed by a strong RFD but just couldn't muster up the motivation to do it. If we had a little stronger surface winds today, this could have been a much different outcome.

Also had one of the worst and scariest moments of my chasing "career" today. Trying to find south or east options coming up to a small town (name now escapes me), BOTH south and east roads were dead ends. So I had no choice but to head north a bit and take a long, winding muddy road FULL of 12" deep pot holes. Trying to weave in and out of that while the bear's cage is approaching is an extremely uneasy feeling. The core finally caught up to us with some very respectable winds and heavy rains, but we quickly came out of the south side and found a paved road.

So, in summary, as well as every other chase in 2010 (besides May 10th), it was "close".

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

I had been eyeing western Illinois and far eastern Iowa for a potential chase most of the day with the shortwave that was forecast to eject into the area. Inititally early convection dampened my hopes a bit, but upon checking the situation out around 2 PM it became evident that the conditions were becoming ripe for a surprise event around the Iowa/Illinois border. I had commitments in DeKalb until 3 PM, but after a quick check to confirm my earlier forecast target of Burlington to Davenport the show still looked like a go. I was convinced the wave in Iowa was stronger than most were giving it credit for, and that the supercell threat was being under forecast. I shot Colin Davis a quick phone call who agreed, and Tia and I hit the road targeting a cu field in se Iowa. My laptop apparently will no longer recognize my cell phone, so I spent the day data free. Kind of refreshing, I suppose! Nice to not have my face buried in a computer screen anyway.

Intercepted the tornado warned storm shortly after producing the last of it's visible tornadoes around the Colchester area. Several tornadoes allegedly touched down while I was on the storm, including one "lofting trees into the air" while I was literally under the mesocyclone but never saw anything. At times the storm exhibited very significant rotation and looked to produce a potential damaging tornado, but surface flow was too weak for the better part of the evening and the storm had trouble containing it's gust front as Scott mentioned the storms in Wisconsin doing for the early part of their life cycle.

I may put up a time lapse tomorrow, as the entire storm was spinning like a top. Probably about the best display I've seen a supercell put on without even squirting out a little tornado for me to play with.

Wall cloud was exhibiting very strong rotation at this point, shortly before the "tree lofting" tornado was reported.

Storm took a bit of a down turn but then re-intensified near Industry, IL where another alleged tornado occurred. I don't see anything tornadic in this image, but perhaps I'll be proven wrong. The outflow was just too much today.

Last view of the storm before ditching it at the Illinois River.

 

[Joel Wright]

Caught up to west-central Illinois supercell near Macomb. The storm had spectacular structure, but seemed to have a hard time tightening any area of strong rotation longer than a minute or two.

Thought we went home "tornadoless", but upon reviewing my pictures I caught what may have been a tornado near Macomb. The time stamp on the picture is 6:51pm, which is shortly before the "trees being lofted into the air" was reported. Definitely can't confirm that this was in fact a tornado just by the picture, but it sure looks interesting in the picture...







Highly contrasted version of the above picture

 

[Chad Cowan]

Got an intimate viewing of the 'Solstice Steamroller' in northeast CO today with Bill Reid, Kinny Adams, Chris Gullikson and Chuck Doswell. After reviewing some Level 2 data, corroborating with other reports and contrast enhancing a few photos, I'm fairly certain that there is a significant tornado in the center of the frame:

 

[Colin Davis]

I'll update this more some other time:

I chased the beast of a supercell that trekked across Western IL on Monday -- a day I couldn't have forecasted much better, for once (had told several people as early as 10am to keep an eye on Route 9 for sup forming out ahead of the line). No tornadoes that I could see, likely due to lack of strong surface flow. There were reports of tornadoes occasionally, but near the time of each report I was very close to the meso and didn't see anything noteworthy. This storm exhibited great structure at several times and at one time (NW of Colchester) some of the strongest rotation aloft I've ever seen. A few choice low-res photos from the day.

First look at the base west of La Harpe, IL

NW of Colchester -- the area from about 1/3 of the way in from left all the way over to just in the frame on right side was rotating violently -- some of the most violent rotation I've ever seen.

Preparing to die about 8 mi WSW of Macomb on 336. Wall cloud again strongly rotating.

And it tries one final time east of Industry -- looking west down CR 9. Wall cloud with insane tail under wedding cake updraft. Note the RFD notch trying to work in on the very left portion of the image.

And the lightning after I got home wasn't too shabby, either -- and I missed most of it.




EDIT: Really, Chad? You had to post that right before I posted mine? How in the hell do I follow that? *applauds*

 

[David Draun]

Short notice chase on Iroquois County BOMB!!!

Well with our recent rash of convective outbreaks it was only a matter of time before I would be able to get on something. I was never expecting to chase yesterday but by 5pm that itch had to be scratched. Morning thunderstorms had long passed and clouds were breaking when I left Chicago for Kankakee at 1:30pm. I check my radar on my Blackberry and see a cluster of dying showers north of the Bloomington area and think nothing of it. It was just going to be a drive to pick up Sarah to bring her back to Dekalb. I was a little tired from driving so we decided to go get a quick bite to eat. On the drive back to her mother's house it has become shockingly apparent that something had basically exploded straight south of the area. Now when I say shocking, I truly mean it literally; a large towering thunderstorm over 80 miles away was throwing out cloud to air lightning bolts that I could see from this distance! At the same time, my favorite AM radio station, WGN 720 is talking about a Tornado Watch that has gone up from Iowa to just the western suburbs of Chicago. And thanks to this developing thermonuclear updraft to the south, the Watch was quickly extended to cover that storm as well.

Not soon after its explosive development from the old cluster of rain showers, the storm receives a Tornado Warning. The warning is for Ford and Iroquois County. Not only that, but another group of supercells with at least one confirmed tornado is coming out of Burlington, Iowa. Thinking I'm going to miss the southern cell, I take off west down IL-17. After talking to my nowcaster, Danny Neal, and he explains how the cell is just drifting, I decide to head south on US-45 to IL-49. The towering cloudscapes put on quite a show as we drive toward them, pounding the ground with cloud-to-ground (CG) bolts. Spotter and chaser reports come in of intermittent wall cloud and tornado sightings, near the town of Rankin, IL, where I eventually catch up and get south of the storm. Obvious rotation is to my north and east as I turn left on to an eastbound baseline road paralleling IL route 9.

I meet up with a couple spotters, I believe their last names were Dickley. Another block south of them, I run into storm chaser Chris Kincaid from Bloomington, IL, who had been following the storms since their initiation along the potent northbound warm front. We continued to watch this storm put on a show of mesoscale teasing as it produced many wall clouds and brief funnels but never touched anything down. Then we hear this low roaring sound and wonder what it is. All of a sudden, to our south and east, this ghostly white ball of wispy cloud plummets out of the updraft and spreads along the ground, evaporating all the cloud material around it and leaving a round hole where light could pass through. We had just witnessed a rear flank downdraft and hoped for the supercell to produce a tornado. But alas, the cold winds of thunderstorm outflow were now blowing, and as organized as the thing still looked, it wasn't going to produce with cool breezes blowing all around. These storms were amazing and I was deeply regretting my camcorder had not held a charge stored in my trunk. The only thing I could document this amazing scene with was my Blackberry's built-in camera.

We punched west on a dirt road toward IL-49 to catch the last supercell in the cluster, but as the sun was going down, the storm threat was transitioning to flooding and wind damage rather than tornadoes. It was time to end the chase. We parted ways and Sarah and I started the long 113 mile trek to Dekalb, stopping in Dairy Queen in Cunnis City, IL with lightning strobing from all four quadrants of sky. It was quite surreal. As we headed back north toward Kankakee, it was clear the fun was far from over! A quick look at the radar on my Blackberry showed a very forboding high-precipitation supercell over Dwight, IL, a town that had been hit with and EF-3 tornado a couple weeks earlier. Anyway, this storm was putting on one of the most amazing lightning shows probably on the entire planet at the time. Anvil crawlers, cloud to air, cloud to ground, and cloud to cloud bolts were all occurring. Not only that, but they were occurring every freaking millisecond!! The lightning was so intense, that the darkness of night could not be realized at any time. As we arrived in Kankakee for a fuel stop, the storm was severe warned and also warned for flooding as it unleashed electrical and hydrological hell on the city and its overly swollen volatile river. It probably scared many residents as they watched CG bolts repeatedly pound the buildings, comm towers, and landscape around them with the resulting thunder constantly crashing as loud as possible.

As I exited my car at the gas station, the air was heavy with a smoke and ozone smell and fire trucks were racing around all over the town. Power was still on, however. Going north to I-55, I encountered several other small storms, with lightning output nearly equaling the intensity of the previous storms. Once again, I was cursing my dead batteried camcorder! But one thing was for sure. My impromptu split-second decision to chase yielded great rewards in a very active season, which due to my schedule, I had essentially missed all of it. Did I catch a tornado east of Rankin, IL? Who knows? I will have to review the picture and try to increase the contrast. One thing is for sure....WOW!

Chase results:
Supercells intercepted: 2
Tornadoes seen: 0 (?)
Hail encountered: 0.00inches
Winds encountered: 45-50mph
And the craziest electrical activity I have ever seen in a storm!!!

 

[Winston Wells]

I also had a gentleman's chase on the western Illinois supercell yesterday. After watching another storm struggle for more than an hour in Cass, Menard, and Mason counties, I finally bolted west on U.S. 136 to try and intercept the TOR-warned cell that moved southeast from Fort Madison, IA down to Macomb, IL.

I got there just in time to watch it croak east of Industry and Vermont, IL. These pictures look NW and were taken from a stretch of U.S. 24 just south and a bit north of Astoria, IL.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

I threw a time lapse of the storm up here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urhwNdH-S6w



It shows the at times significant rotation, and then latter the storm struggling with it's own outflow and having the updraft undercut thus choking off any potential tornadogenesis.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Here is video from my (very) local chase of the HP supercell that developed over McFarland. Would have liked to get on the lead storm near Edgerton (it was that hook and couplet that convinced me this was the real deal, not an MKX "warning outbreak"), but I would have had to corepunch it by blasting south on Highway 51.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aG2EcIWf5E

 

[James Gustina]

Here's a quick look at some of the photos i took yesterday as another squall line rolled in. Local again but overall very fun to watch. Gust front went over very quickly with a lightly green tinted rain core to the north. Just had to walk across the street to get a quick view of it. Finally ended the year with a gust front shot.

 

[ahaberlie]

Some shots of the gust front of the tornado warned storm near Arlington, WI.. might have later spawned a tornado near fon du lac.. this thing had a mean hook on it as it crossed the MS river about an hour or so before these shots were taken

 

[Christopher E. Kincaid]

I caught the storm in E. Central IL that David Draun was on. I started watching it early on right as I left work. I had no data as I left my laptop at home.

This is what I saw as I left work - there was alot of rising motion and I liked the smooth appearance of some of the clouds around the storm:

East of Bloomington/Normal this thing exploded and I loved the inflow bands:

It finally made this near Guthrie which is NE of Gibson City:

I followed this thing all the way east of Rantoul. It kept tryin to go again:

Caught some nice daytime bolts while i was talking to David:

Then on the way home took a few of these and fed the local vampire bugs with lots of my blood - damn they were huge!

All in all not a bad chase... Met David, got lots of nice pics and had fun.

More pics on my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/toodamnice