(Story Written By Ryan Thies)

It was a busy day of sitting on the couch and watching TV.  However, I was aware that there was a marginal risk for severe weather and thus, kept an eye on the radar.  By evening, I started seeing storms going up.  Many of the storms would take on a kinked look which often indicates rotation in the storms.  Velocity scans showed that was indeed the case.  I kept an eye on the storms, but the most interesting looking storms were to the south along Interstate 44 and not in an area that I was willing to chase.  However, an isolated storm formed to the northwest of my home in St. Charles.  It started to take on supercell characteristics, so I made the decision to head out. 

I traveled up Highway 79 where I intercepted a shelf cloud.  I really didn’t see any rotation, but storm structure was not bad. 

After five or so minutes of watching the storm, the rain had caught me, so I headed south to get back ahead of it.  I turned onto TR Hughes Boulevard and went west about a mile to get a view.  The storm didn’t look very impressive, but I was already out so I was going to stick with the storm for a little while.

Again, the rain caught me, and I headed back to Highway 79 and drove south.  I then started to head east toward Interstate 370 but stopped along the way to watch a rather unimpressive storm move in my direction.  As it was due north of me, I started noticing some rising scud and rotation became evident.  This was the start of a wall cloud. 

I was unfortunately getting behind the storm, so I headed east on Interstate 370.  I eventually got out ahead of the storm again and decided to set up camp in New Town St. Charles where I watched a rotating wall cloud a few miles to my west.  The circulation was coming right at me.

As it got closer, the wall cloud started to lose its shape and rotation.  It was turning into more of an outflow dominated storm.  I was even lucky enough to capture a close-range cloud to ground lightning bolt on camera. 

I got back in the car and did not leave it the rest of the chase.  The wallcloud / gustfront eventually forced me to move, but the storm began to rapidly weaken.  Before long I was calling the chase and heading home satisfied with a nice local chase.