May 20, 2025    
(Solo Chase - by Ryan Thies)

(Click on images to enlarge them)

As we moved into the third consecutive day of storm chasing, the Storm Prediction Center issued a forecast of an Enhanced Risk of Severe Storms with a 10% hatched area for tornadoes.





After chasing for the last two days, I wasn’t too impressed with what models showed through early morning, but the models started to hint at some tornadic potential toward late morning. Additionally, I saw some convection returns on radar southwest of Springfield, Illinois and that was enough to get me out the door.  My dad was committed to work at this point, so that left me with doing a rare solo chase. It was fairly close and within an area I am familiar with so I left the house at noon and hightailed it north up Interstate 55. My plan was to get to Springfield and then readjust as needed. I arrived in Springfield and decided to find a viewing area just north as the storms were slated to pass north and west of there. There were now two supercells and I aimed to get in front of the north one with an option to drop south to the second one if needed. I got off at highway 124 and went a couple miles west where I had a view of both storm bases.

 
The northern storm had a clearly rotating wallcloud, but the rotation seemed to struggle a bit.  Within just a few minutes of arriving, the southern of the two cells got a tornado warning. I eventually headed east then southeast and lined myself up with that storm. The storm was rotating, but would gust out not too long after reaching my location.

Eventually, a third supercell which had formed even further south, acquired a tornado warning. I made my way further southeast to that storm. This storm had the strongest rotation I had observed so far, but it too would go through the cycle of spinning up and then gusting out.


I followed the storm moving east and north in order to stay with the circulation, taking a few seconds to get photos along the way. As I approached the town of Emery, I noticed a small, but very rapidly rotating wall cloud. It spun hard, but it failed to drop a tornado.

At this point the storm had gotten ahead of me and I was forced to play catch up. As I was heading east toward the town of Cisco, I looked to my north and saw a funnel about halfway down.



It quickly roped out. It looked to be an occluded circulation. I never could verify if this was the end of a tornado or just a funnel cloud. I continued east to Cisco where I picked up a fourth supercell that had fired.

I continued to follow this storm into Champaign, Illinois as it had some weak rotation.


However, I did not want to follow the storm into Indiana, plus I was behind again and chasing solo.  I was tired and called the chase. 



Though I never saw a tornado, it was a fun chase that yielded several picturesque storms, quarter-sized hail, and a funnel cloud.

Trip Log


9 Hours  -  426 Miles

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


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