After seeing a tornado in central Illinois last Friday another great opportunity presented itself in central Illinois again with a MDT RISK for severe weather and tornadoes. Our target was Springfield, IL as conditions seemed very favorable in that area for a severe weather outbreak with supercells and tornadoes.
The synoptic pattern has been cooperating as of late for all of us storm chasers as almost everyday a piece of energy gets ejected out from the western trough that focuses the severe weather off to the east in the Great Plains and/or Midwest.
Anyway back to our chase, we arrived outside Springfield, IL around 3pm, but it seemed that area was limited with destabilization as convective debris from the overnight convection was limiting instability so we headed west on I-72 toward Jacksonville, IL and arrived outside Pittsfield, IL to tap greater instability where a Tornado Watch was later issued for our area. Convective initiation began to our west around 5pm and we were in a great spot to catch some supercells.
We caught one supercell that split off a tornadic storm near Jacksonville, IL that produced a tornado. We did miss that tornado however we were delighted to catch a beautiful wall cloud and mesocyclone north of Pittsfield, IL off I-72. These storms were not moving terribly fast which meant a great opportunity to sit back for a few and take it all in. I was also amazed with the fast upward vertical motion on the supercell we targeted.
While photographing a wall cloud and mesocyclone off I-72 this bunny started hopping around in some tall grass prairie and posed for a quick photo.
Wall cloud at sunset near Valley City, IL
Darkness about to fall as supercell runs out of steam
