April 24, 2002
Southern Illinois

 
Ryan and I decided to chase during the afternoon and targeted the southern Illinois area.  We ended up chasing some convection on the Illinois side of the river down Highway 64 southeast out of St. Louis.  The storm did land a tornado in far southeastern Illinois, far ahead of us.  That convection rocketed out and soon it became obvious that we were in no-mans land with the new convection firing in southeast Missouri.  We aborted the storms to our east but did manage a few rainbow shots on the back side of that storm.

 
Rainbow
Rainbow

 
After aborting the storm to the east and realizing we could not position ourselves before dark for the Missouri storms, we detoured to view the entire damage path of the April 20, 2002, F3 tornado that ravaged Wayne County, Illinois.

 
Tornado blows through many homes along its path.
Note the over-turned Farm Combine to the left of the repaired electrical pole
Why you don't stay in a mobile home during a tornado.
Tornado dumps two full grown trees.
Tornado snaps trees as it goes from one field to the next field.
Not much is left here.
Trailors are rolled and thrown everywhere.
More snapped trees.
 

Click on the link below to see video of some of these storms.


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