07.13.2004 - Chase Log (Central IL)
July 13, 2004
Stan Olson
Pictures
http://www.stansweather.net/2004/07-13-04-pictures.php
Chase Summary:
A moderate risk in July here in Illinois?? That's what I awoke to on Tuesday
morning. The models were showing some decent wind shear across parts of
Illinois today, not to mention the insane amount of instability and moisture
in the air. I was thinking it would be a good day for severe weather mainly
because my weather server at home took a crap on me and decided it didn't
want to operate today, so that meant no weather updates to my cell phone.
When I got to work, I loaded up all my weather applications and monitored
the situation closely. I noticed one lone supercell firing up in northwest
Illinois late Tuesday morning that made me wonder if things were going up
too soon. Several tornado warnings were going out shortly after 12:30pm,
this thing was churning! At this rate I would never have a chance to chase.
I normally get off at 4:30, but I pulled a few strings and managed to get
off at 1:30. I went home and loaded up the gear, then headed out to chase
this thing.
I headed west on I-74 just after 2:00pm, hoping to get to Bloomington and
then go north from there. As I got closer to Bloomington, I was hearing
reports on the scanner of tornadoes in Woodford county. I got off at the
Carlock exit and as I made it to the top of the off ramp, I saw something to
my north that caught my eye. There appeared to be a tornado about 10 miles
to my north, but the contrast was so low that at the time I could not
confirm that it was indeed a tornado. (video analysis is still in progress)
I headed west and then north of Carlock, trying to get closer without
driving into anything I would later regret.
As I headed north, I had to
check the map several times to make sure I wasn't in Missouri. Most of
central Illinois is fairly decent for chasing, but I managed to find one of
the most tree covered, hilly parts of the area. (not to mention the freaking
corn fields!) Anywho, I made way to US 24 and headed east to El Paso (IL,
not TX) and then headed south on SR 251.
I continued south till I reached Kappa, IL and then headed west on CR 600N.
At 3:40pm, I started receiving some small hail about 2.5 miles west of
Kappa. As in previous hail encounters, I thought it'd be wise to get off the
road and wait out the storm. I found a farmer's driveway and parked next to
a tree. (which provided no hail protection since I was on the wrong side of
the tree) As I sat there, the hail continued getting bigger which had me
worried a bit. Once it was over, I jumped out and grabbed a few of the
bigger chunks. The pieces I measure were 1.75", but they had melted a bit by
the time I got to them. (back in Kappa, there was 2.75" baseball hail
reported!) The guy whose driveway I was in came out after the storm and
talked with me for a few minutes. He said that the hail took out one of his
north windows of his house. He also mentioned that he saw the tornado
earlier from his house, which made me very jealous.
After talking with him for a little while longer, I decided to follow the
storm back home. I never could quite catch up with it as I made my way back
to the southeast. I did see some nice mammatus on the way back as well as
two semis that had been blown over on I-74 near Mansfield. I got home around
5:00pm and enjoyed the mammatus directly over Champaign.
Final thoughts:
Never thought I'd be seeing a decent chase here in Illinois during July, but
today was definitely one of those days. It was very frustrating to have the
stuff firing up so early in the day, but at least I was able to get off work
early and go chase. NWS damage surveys revealed F4 damage near Roanoke, IL,
which was just north of where I was. Luckily no one was killed from this
event, so kudos to all the spotters/chasers out there for keeping an eye on
the sky.
Statistics:
Total Chase Miles: 170 miles
--
Stan Olson, K9SWX
[email protected]
www.stansweather.net
