John Farley
Supporter
Since the storms were close, I headed out this afternoon to see what I could see. Storms developed around mid-afternoon at scattered spots along an outflow boundary that ran roughly along the Mississippi River from Quincy, IL to the STL area, and on to the ESE across southern IL toward IN. The biggest cluster of storms was in NE MO around Hannibal, but a storm initiated in central Macoupin Co. only a half hour's drive from my house and initially looked decent, so out I went. It died quickly, however, so I knew I needed to blast west across Macoupin Co. toward Jerseyville to intercept the main show. Initially the southernmost storm in the cluster was a strong, slow-moving single cell, with some supercell characteristics, over Lincoln and Pike Counties, MO, drifting slowly into Calhoun Co., IL. But as I got toward Jerseyville, the storm abruptly changed speed and character. It quickly evolved from a single cell into a bow echo, with the northern part now screaming across Jersey Co. at 50 mph, double its earlier speed. (To the southwest, down the line, the motion was still much slower, but that did not matter where I was.) I could see I was going to get overrun by the time I was 10 miles or so east of Jerseyville, so I backtracked east to IL 111 to blast south and try to get around what I thought was still a single cell. But by the time I got to Brighton, it was obvious that would not work, as the storm was already nearly on me. I could see the gust front just to my west, with one lowering that looked like a wall cloud but may have just been scud. I briefly stopped for this pic before I blasted east:
As I blasted east on a back road from Brighton toward Bunker Hill, I was right on the gust front and the shelf cloud was directly above me. I stopped briefly to photograph the shelf cloud and the scud fingers along its leading edge, looking northeast roughly toward Shipman:
When I got to Bunker Hill, I had gained nothing on the storm, so I stopped away from any trees or wires and pulled under the roof of a bank drive-through and let the storm overrun me. I videotaped intense rain and wind I would estimate at around 50 mph, perhaps a little stronger. There were numerous reports of wind damage in the Brighton and Shipman areas, with a measured gust of 71 mph at Shipman. A spotter west of Bunker Hill also estimated 70 mph wind, but it did not seem that strong to me where I stopped. Once the worst of the storm passed over, I headed south on IL 159 toward Edwardsville. There were several tree limbs down along the road between Bunker Hill and Midway. Just north of Edwardsville, I noticed an abrupt increase in CG lightning to my southeast over the east side of Edwardsville, where I live. I stopped again to videotape the lightning for a while. When I got home, my wife confirmed that the barrage of CG had been in our part of town. There didn't seem to be much damage in Edwardsville, though, except for one branch I saw down in the north part of town.
Later, after dark, I went out again to nearby Glik Park and photographed the lightning, which was mostly anvil crawlers, but some CG, too.
This was my first chase with my Sprint aircard. As people told me, I need to get an antenna - the connection was sporadic, and it also seemed like Weathertap was not always updating properly even when I had a good connection. It was good for confirming I needed to go west in the early part of the chase, but did not pick up the abrupt change in storm character and motion in time to do me any good.
I haven't looked at my video yet, but if it is good I will post it to Youtube and in any case will post when my full chase report is on my Website.
As I blasted east on a back road from Brighton toward Bunker Hill, I was right on the gust front and the shelf cloud was directly above me. I stopped briefly to photograph the shelf cloud and the scud fingers along its leading edge, looking northeast roughly toward Shipman:
When I got to Bunker Hill, I had gained nothing on the storm, so I stopped away from any trees or wires and pulled under the roof of a bank drive-through and let the storm overrun me. I videotaped intense rain and wind I would estimate at around 50 mph, perhaps a little stronger. There were numerous reports of wind damage in the Brighton and Shipman areas, with a measured gust of 71 mph at Shipman. A spotter west of Bunker Hill also estimated 70 mph wind, but it did not seem that strong to me where I stopped. Once the worst of the storm passed over, I headed south on IL 159 toward Edwardsville. There were several tree limbs down along the road between Bunker Hill and Midway. Just north of Edwardsville, I noticed an abrupt increase in CG lightning to my southeast over the east side of Edwardsville, where I live. I stopped again to videotape the lightning for a while. When I got home, my wife confirmed that the barrage of CG had been in our part of town. There didn't seem to be much damage in Edwardsville, though, except for one branch I saw down in the north part of town.
Later, after dark, I went out again to nearby Glik Park and photographed the lightning, which was mostly anvil crawlers, but some CG, too.
This was my first chase with my Sprint aircard. As people told me, I need to get an antenna - the connection was sporadic, and it also seemed like Weathertap was not always updating properly even when I had a good connection. It was good for confirming I needed to go west in the early part of the chase, but did not pick up the abrupt change in storm character and motion in time to do me any good.
I haven't looked at my video yet, but if it is good I will post it to Youtube and in any case will post when my full chase report is on my Website.
