on this morning in Peoria, IL
On August 16th, I once again had the day-off from work and monitored the weather situation throughout the morning. It appeared the main severe weather risk would be in downstate Illinois, but I knew here in central Illinois we ought to get an "early show" sometime during the morning hours as the cold front marched through Iowa into west-central Illinois. I set my alarm rather early to wake up and take a look at the radar. I was up before 7:00am as I was already seeing convection passing to my north through northern Illinois. With that being said new convection was forming however along an outflow boundary to my immediate west toward the Mississippi River. By 7:30am, I was already heading out the door with the equipment to grab a few shots of the approaching convection. I headed west on U.S. 150 and would set up on the north-side of Peoria, IL immediately behind my place of employment which gave me a decent view of the northwest horizon. By 8:00am, this convection was morphing into a nice Mesoscale Convective System (MCS). I could make out a nice shelf cloud in the distance approaching my location so I sat here and shot some time-lapse video and a few photos as the shelf cloud passed overhead before the frequent lightning forced me to call it a morning. I've added a few photos and some video before I headed indoors to escape the lightning barrage and heavy downpours that accompanied these storms below:
One of the favorites I shot on this morning...
This MCS was organizing rather quickly at this point!
Another cool shot...
The last shot from the morning as I chicken out
not wanting to become a lightning fatality statistic...
not wanting to become a lightning fatality statistic...
I've added a YouTube time-lapse (above)
That wraps up this brief post. I'll update accordingly with more severe weather or photography posts over the next few weeks...
