Although there was a slight risk of
severe storms just to my east today, I had no
intention of chasing due to the very low tornado
risk. Wasn't even paying attention to the
weather when out of the blue I get a call from my
friend Lucas Munzlinger alerting me of a growing
cell just to the north of my house with some
interesting looks to it. I decided "Why Not!"
since it was very close by.
Within 5 minutes I was out the door
on my way chasing solo today. Took Route 67
north through Alton, IL, then grabbed Route 111
north. As I approached Brighton, IL, I had a
good view of the back side of the last cell in a
small line of cells (#1).
I followed
these cells after catching them and moved
east and north with them. The
cell(s) changed shape and transitioned a lot during
the time I followed them (#2-#6). Saw plenty
of the gust front, but at one point the tail end
storm made a feeble attempt at forming a funnel (#6),
but it just couldn't get a true spin going. I
followed these cells all the way up to Litchfield,
IL and at that point, let the those cells go and
grabbed on to a new cell forming off to the
southwest (#7-#9).
I let that cell come up to me, catch me, and pass by
again with nothing spectacular to see before heading
home.
Definitely saw several wall clouds
today as I drove along side of the storms.
Never saw a velocity couplet on radar nor did I see
any substantial rotation in any of those with the
minor exception of the one with the wanna-be funnel
that lasted probably less than a minute. One
of the drawbacks of chasing solo is not being able
to monitor everything in real time and that is
especially true for me who rarely does it.
Photos
from today (click to
enlarge)
The route on this trip
2.5 Hours -
120 Miles
April 24, 2022 
