June is finally ending and summer has begun. However, mother nature left one more surprise for this year's spring season yesterday. Yesterday featured a warm and humid airmass ahead of an approaching cold front. No SLGT risk was issued due to minimal shear in my area so only isolated severe wx was possible. ISOLATED it was! For me however not so isolated. Just a few miles from my house to be precise. After now-casting from home and taking some video earlier of agitated cumulus I noticed some intensification on one storm. I preceded to check the radar and noticed this cell to my southwest had just intensified and was beginning to interact with an outflow boundary that was accelerating southward. Knowing how outflow boundaries sometimes can cause crazy things to happen and boundaries enhance low-level shear. I ventured out and noticed an odd feature in the sky. At first glance it looked like a mesocyclone and I had to say to myself a million times "IT CAN"T BE", not with the lack of shear and chance for severe weather today. I was proven wrong however and we will get to that. While taking some video for around 15 min all of a sudden and I mean all of the sudden ROTATION! I couldn't believe my eyes so while video taping I quickly ran into a farm field taking some pics. It was unreal at the time that this was taking place on a day that you don't expect it and SO CLOSE to home. Sometimes it's hard to see rotation with the naked eye but I was seeing it. Then a funnel protrudes from the main meso's base! I probably jumped up and down 5 times in the next minute or so. The only downer was that the funnel didn't have enough strength to make it to the ground. All we needed was just a little more shear and turning of the winds with height and that sucker would have been on the ground. I've drove thousands of miles so far this year to IA, all over IL, and even rode to WI. Yesterday, 0 miles!!!! Now currently looking at the horizon from my backyard I've seen 2 tornadoes in the field to my northwest in 2004, one to the southeast (rain-wrapped), and today's funnel cloud to the southwest. They've always missed us, but sooner or later I know that luck is gonna run out. What a day though, totally unexpected and it was by a little bit of now-casting with my radars and pure luck that I witnessed this.
Bout to kaboom!
