Supercell (outflow dominate) west of New Bedford, IL in northern Bureau County, IL
Monday, featured a short drive north of Kewanee, IL along the I-80 corridor near the town of New Bedford, IL. This was a quick throw all the gear into the SUV and hit the road kind of chase. I monitored mesoanalysis and reflectivity most of the day from home and saw a remnant outflow boundary that a decaying supercell in eastern Iowa was approaching. Well, at the time I had nothing better to do on my day-off so I thought yet another local chase was needed. Anyhow, I figured I'd catch up to this storm as it hit the outflow boundary and crossed into Illinois east of the Mississippi River. That's an area of far better chase-terrain! Not to mention this storm was entering a better environment as well with a pocket of instability present, 0-6km shear around 30kts, and dew points near 70°F once again. Upon arrival this thunderstorm looked not very impressive west of Hooppole, IL and honestly I didn't expect much from this chase, but strange things can and do often happen along outflow boundaries folks. As I arrived shortly after 4:00pm I quickly noticed a wall cloud huggin' the Illinois landscape as this storm organized with each reflectivity scan. Since this storm wasn't in too big of a hurry I sat here for a good half hour or so getting some time-lapse video as it began to intersect the outflow boundary. Thereafter, it quickly began to get a tad more organized. As the storm continued tracking to the east into Bureau County, IL I stopped many times along the way adding some more Illinois storm structure shots to my 2010 collection. In a few instances, this storm did exhibit some rotation with "notches" forming along the shelf where it was intersecting the outflow boundary. It never got close to producing a tornado though, but I still was able to get some decent convection out of a boring severe weather day. I've added some photos and a time-lapse below:
First view of the storm west of Hoopole ,IL with its lowered-base/wall cloud in the distance
A shelf cloud quickly begins to form here as it crosses the outflow boundary left-over from earlier in the day
Grungy structure at this point, but it would get better later...
I did see some odd motion in here as this cell got a tad more organized
Shelf cloud becomes much more pronounced...
Storm at this point has some rotation on radar... (Definitely one of my favorite shots from the day)
Storm showing off some decent structure
Some supercellcharacteristics again.. notice the notch (right)
A storm highway shot here as the outflow dominate supercell continues east
One last shot of the storm's shelf cloud as darkness approaches near Princeton, IL...
I've added a YouTube time-lapse (above)
That concludes this chase log. It sure was nice to get out again and see some convection indeed. We should get some more chances at thunderstorms and severe weather over the next few days in the ring-of-fire pattern that sets up. In other words, very hot/humid conditions will persist with periodic MCS activity over the next week or so. After all, we are in the "Dog Days" of summer...
