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THE MAKING OF THE CHASE: Chasing the day before had left us in Waterloo, Iowa. There was a moderate risk for central Illinois. It looked like a big squall line setup for the day, but the discussion mentioned some hope of cells remaining isolated and possibly supercellular at least at the start, so we decided to give it a go anyway. Left at about 10 am south on 380 and into Illinois. We stopped for data at around 2 pm in far NW Illinois. Saw that storms were already firing along the cold front....great. We were a good 60 or 70 miles north of the front with it moving away to the SE. There was a lot of deep layer shear in the area, so we decided to try it anyway. The first tornado warning went up for central Illinois at about 5:30 pm as we were entering the Peoria area. The sky was a solid wall of grey, so we couldn't make out any individual storms. We decided to continue south anyway. Soon, more tornado warnings were issued for storms both north and south of us on the line. We still couldn't see anything.
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We were treated to a brilliant lightning show as we headed south keeping pace with the squall line. Frequent CG's and nearly continuous in-cloud lightning. Presence of heavy rain precluded any decent time-exposure lightning photos on film, though. Still no signs of rotation or any classic features with these storms. |
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Near Effingham, we decided it was getting late and called off the chase.
We took shelter under a gas station to watch some gusty winds, heavy rain and marble-size
hail. The tornado warnings continued to be extended for these storms even after we gave up
chase. I guess the 88-D's indicated rotation, but we sure didn't see any. Here's a rather laughable quote I made while taking this footage...Chris thought it was funny too...I guess I was pretty tired from the day! |
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Later that night we drove through St. Louis and I finally got my footage of the St. Louis arch, so I was happy. :) We stopped at a hotel about 40 miles west of town in Warrenton, Missouri at about 2 am. |
| SUMMARY: Well, I wish it could have been a better day. We thought this would turn into a squall line, but didn't expect it to do it so quickly. It was a marginal day, but we're out to chase, so that's what we did! Sure was better than staying home! |
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