wall cloud near Macomb, IL
A few weeks ago featured a short local chase near Macomb, IL. I documented a brief gustnado near Macomb, IL on this day as a severe thunderstorm pushed out some nice outflow along the recently tilled farm fields in west-central Illinois. This area featured a high-CAPE environment with about 3,000J/KG of CAPE, but wind shear was hard to come by with 0-6km shear barely even reaching 30kts even with the presence of a moist boundary-layer. Therefore, storms were mostly downdraft dominate. While everyone was heading for central Kansas I didn't have that luxury at that time, however the major tornado outbreak that was being forecast ended up busting anyway in the Great Plains. This was a kind of a boring chase day, but I was able to get everything set up and tested in my new chase vehicle for some "real" chasing in the following weeks... I've added a few photos below including one snapshot of the gustnado below:
(2011 Ford Escape XLT)
Look closely (center) of a swirling gustnado
I caught along U.S. 136...
I caught along U.S. 136...
Portrait shot of the wall cloud...
That's all for this chase day. Storm reports can be found here. Nothing spectacular, but some wind damage reports in my area due to the outflow dominance of these severe thunderstorms...
