After the
trip to Southwest Missouri yesterday, the parameters
were not as good for the storm chase in our own back
yard in Western Illinois. Thought long and hard
about not even going out, but since Ryan was off, we
decided to take the chance. It was going to be
an early show with storms approaching in the late
morning. We watched the radar from the living
room as the storms approached. As they got right
on the doorstep, we headed out the door and got across
the Mississippi River into Illinois. We found an
open spot on the eastern edge of the Mississippi River
valley and watched the multiple cells as they came
over the river. Several cells stuck out as being
a bit stronger than the others, so our focus was on
them. We eventually decided to stay in front of
the cells and move up I-55 as the cells northwest of
us seemed to hold the most potential. We got off
at the Hamel, Illinois, Highway 140 exit and watched
the storms for a few minutes.
To keep
in front on the storms, we moved a bit further north
to get in a better position on the storm with the best
potential. We moved up I-55 to the Highway 4
exit and moved to a spot where we had a clear view of
everything to the west. It was here that we saw
the best opportunity with a few more lightning bolts
and a couple lowerings and at one point, a short, very
narrow funnel came down out of the cloud. Only
lasted for a few seconds. In playback of the
video at a higher speed, you could see some rotation
that matched what we were seeing on the radar.
We
continued to move north on Highway 4 to Stanton,
Illinois and realized we needed to work our way east
again. Got back to I-55. At this point
storms to the west were diminishing, so the only
opportunity left were a few storms out in front of
this line that was now moving on top of us. A
quick look at the map let us know the only reasonable
way to attack the rest of the storms was to go north
to the Litchfield, Illinois exit, Highway 16 then and
move east to Hillsboro, Illinois. From there,
we'd move south again on Highway 127. The rest
of the drive was pretty uneventful as the clouds
showed nothing of interest and passing through the
cells were nothing more than a big rain event.
3.5 Hours
- 145
Miles
|
Click
on the link below to see video of some of
these storms.
|
March 30, 2017 
