December 23, 2015    

Little did I know, a late season storm opportunity would pop up today.  Everyone was touting a big event 250 miles or so to the south of us, but up near St. Louis, there had been very little talk of anything big.  The problem today was that I had a holiday commitment for lunch and would not be done with that until 12:30 keeping me from committing to a longer trip to the better storm zone.  The Storm Prediction Center had placed St. Louis in the Slight Risk which gave the day some hope even with my lunch commitment. 

Got home from my luncheon at about 12:40.  Ryan had taken a half day off of work in anticipation of a chase, so he was already at the house waiting.  Now it was just a matter of deciding whether to chase or not to chase as the radar had nothing on it.  I immediately started checking the current weather data.  It wasn't until I came across the Chris Higgin's video, a detailed weather analysis update that convinced me to give the day a try.

The forecast was for supercell storms to form in Central Missouri and move northeastward around 3:00.  As the first storms popped on radar around 2:00, we hopped in the car and headed out.  Initiation location of the storms did not give us enough time to catch them in Missouri where the best storm parameters were, so our target was to head up Highway 67 on the Illinois side of the river and meet the storms.



We had sites on the southern most storm in the line as we drove toward the intercept point.  Around 4:00 as the storm peaked.  We were right next to it and it was now severe thunderstorm warned.  The next storm in the line above ours was tornado warned, but too far away for us to catch.   There were some minor attempts at a wall cloud and the velocity radar showed some rotation, but the storm never could get anything going.






By 4:45, there was not much left of the storm as it met a quick demise in the stable air over Illinois.


Radar views from 2:00p.m. to 5:00p.m.

22:00pm - Storms Begin Firing
3:00pm - Storms Increasing
 4:00pm - Storms Maxing Out
 5:00pm - Storms Evaperated

On the trek back home, the dash cam caught a glimpse of a meteor in front of us.  You'll see the meteor at the 5 second mark of the video (17:14:55 of the actual camcorder clock).  Look above the tree on the left hand side of the screen.





167 miles, around 4.5 hours.

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


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