I can think of 2 occasions with possible funnels and 1 where there was a definite funnel but no confirmation except the public.
#1 - May 18th, 1997 - 2 Large HP supercells moved into my neighborhood at around 7 PM. from the NW. There were many reports of tornadoes to the North, including an F2 that tore through the Northern suburb of Lindenhurst. While filming at the park near my house, I heard over the police band of a funnel cloud moving SE from 10 miles away. Through the lightning flashes you can make out a very dark ragged base of a gust front. There were many funnel look-a-likes, but one stood out and lasted the longest. Probably a matter of 10 minutes this large low hanging "funnel shaped" mass headed toward me, then directly over me. In the distance, all you can see is power flashes underneath this "thing." Since it was HP I never truly discounted the fact that it may have been a funnel, however, more than likely it was just a gustnado-ish/downburst type deal. Once the feature passed overhead winds howled to about 80 mph and brought down 50-100 trees in and around my neighborhood. Its on an old VHS tape that I still have, I will need to convert it and post it on youtube.
#2 - April 20, 2003 - New Washington, Indiana. After not making it to KS and OK the day before we decided to follow the system east into KY and IN. After intercepting 4 warned storms in and around the Indianapolis metro area, I decided to dip south to a long line of embedded supercells that was heading NE from Western Kentucky. There were numerous tornado warnings and reports of damage (later learned it was straight line winds.) Decided to get a hotel in Seymour, IN, and grab a bite to eat at a local Pizza Hut. When we finished eating, we stopped in awe to look at the scene that was in front of our very eyes. To the west was the most majestic sunset you could ever see. (On a circle that would be 270 degrees) Pan over 10 degrees so you are looking west southwest and you see the outline of a huge black anvil stretching over the sunset and feeding into the northern end of a massive squall line that was spitting out prolific CC and CG. The pictures I have of this were an epic failure, but luckily I have some video of it that is on HI-8 tape. We drove south from Seymour about 20 miles into the teeth of this storm. Stopped in a little town of New Washington, Indiana, and let the storm pass just south of us. While trying to take lightning photographs, I noticed something almost directly over head.(Keep in mind it was about 9 PM) Kept thinking to myself, that looks like a funnel, but just looked it off and continued trying to capture lightning. Next thing I know I start feeling wind at my back (from the east) heading west at around 15-20 mph. Since I was in the middle of no-where, I didn't have internet connection so looking at radar was quite impossible. I noticed this area of interest sort of became elongated and had a little needle-like tail as it was darting from W to E about a mile or two to the south of us.(Keeping in mind I was trying to capture lightning looking to the WSW while this feature was due south) Again I still didn't want to call it a funnel......until I was blasted by a strong north gust that rocked the car (had to move inside as moderate rain had started to fall). Circulation? Coincidence? Who knows..... There wasn't a log of any sort of damage or tornado report from that area so my guess is we got caught up in the northern end(bookend vortex) of the squall line that produced low hanging scud and would explain the reason why we felt a wind shift.
#3 - May 30th, 2003 - I 39 - Route 34[SIZE=-1]
2140[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]UNK[/SIZE][SIZE=-1] WEST BROOKLYN [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]LEE [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]IL[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]4169[/SIZE][SIZE=-1] 8914[/SIZE][SIZE=-2] REPORTED BY PUBLIC. (LOT)[/SIZE] Per the SPC report.
Parked on the ramp of I 39 and Route 30 (Mendota exit) watched the 2nd in a line of tornado warned supercells move ESE out of WI and NW IL.
Was the view as it moved toward me. Notice a very low ragged wall cloud with tail cloud just to the left of center coming at me from the NW.
As it got closer, I began seeing definite strong rotation (already a tornado warned storm) Rotation was concentrated near the center of the image as it was a rather large wall cloud. Tornado reports began coming in like the one above, but I could never see a touch down. Just brief blotchy funnels from time to time and that was it. Later on this same storm did produce 3 confirmed tornadoes including an F1 that went through Downtown Joliet.
I was doing a decent job keeping up with it as it was trailing Route 34 for a while, but 34 trends back to the north and east and once the storm crossed 34, I was done. Couldn't keep up with it and had to let it go.
So my ratio would be something like 25:1 with 2 maybes thrown in.
