A supercell develops in southeast Iowa along a cold front near Birmingham, IA
On May 12th, Vicky and I chased again in southeast Iowa as a cold front progressed east. By noon, we started pushing west along U.S. 34 crossing the Mississippi River at Burlington, IA. We would later turn south on IA Rt. 1 south of Fairfield, IA to intercept a severe thunderstorm that was trying to organize. Upon arrival this storm looked rather pathetic and realizing this wasn't gonna be the storm we waited and waited for about a hour as a new storm initiated off to this storm's south. This particular storm was going to tap an area featuring 3,000J/kg of CAPE, 0-6km shear at 40kts, and a rather moist boundary-layer with dew points pooling around 70°F. If their was going to be a storm that would "do it" on this day this would of been it in this area. We continued to head south on IA Rt. 1 and later turned west outside Birmingham, IA to intercept this intensifying storm while watching a visible wall cloud on our way. We pulled off the highway observing a very low wall cloud. After sitting and watching this beautiful storm we moved farther east trying to keep up with this supercell. We also managed to see College of DuPage Tour #2 headed east at this moment as well. This storm was producing some nice hail with limited road options to stay in front of it to our north. We would take a more cautious approach due to the hail and photographed the south part of the hail core. After seeing this storm heading into an unfavorable road network as it approached the Mississippi River we decided to let it go. We then crossed the river at Burlington, IA once again and waited for some new storms to develop and become outflow dominate southwest of Stronghurst, IL. We photographed a nice shelf cloud at this point and tracked it east near Peoria, IL near sunset. I've added photos from the chase day below:
Wide-angle shot of the wall cloud to our west!
Closer-view about a mile to our west!
Another wide-angle shot...
Supercell getting closer putting out some nice CG's at this point (intensification)...
Looking southwest!
Rapidly rising scud! (right)
"Greenage"
Hail core directly to our west!
Inflow into the storm! (center)
We just barely got out of the way of the hail core...
A shelf cloud approaches southwest of Stronghurst, IL
Saw this random tree stump and decided to include it in the foreground for a few shots...
One more shot at this location before moving east once again!
As we progressed east I found this photogenic red barn in the middle of nowhere and couldn't resist stopping to take a few shots with the shelf cloud...
I was quite pleased with the results!
One more to end this chase on!
That's all for this chase day. I'm also working on posting my spring: 2014 collection as well. Stay tuned for that here shortly.
