February 19, 2026    
(Click on images to enlarge them)

An early season tornado chance was forecast for the day.  I was glad to see the opportunity, but was not glad to find out my son Ryan was not able to join me as he was out of town with his job.  So this day, I was forced to chase solo.  Luckily, my friend and fellow storm chaser, Nick Pavlovits, was going out in his Tesla with loads of tech and AI assistance which gave him plenty of weather data, weather updates, maps, and anything else he needed at his verbal command.  Nick agreed to provide continuous communication via our cell phones which let me focus more on the driving and storm visuals while freeing me from all of those other distractions needing to be dealt with while chasing.  Our day worked well tag team chasing.

The Storm Prediction Center had an Enhanced Risk of Severe Storms with a 10% hatched Tornado Risk.



I left the house around 11:30am with a target of Lebanon, Illinois on Highway 50 to meet up with Nick.  On the way there, I altered the target further east to Carlyle, Illinois to stay ahead of the on-going line of rain showers.  I met up with Nick in Carlyle and we decided to move further east to Salem, Illinois.  There, I had lunch and looked over the current model data with Nick and kept an eye on the radar.   Eventually, the showers coming at us from the southwest began to intensify as the atmosphere was becoming more unstable.



We continued to nudge eastward to stay out ahead of the now broken line of storms as they approached from the southwest.

We eventually noticed the storms near us began shrinking while the storms to our northwest were gaining intensity.  We backtracked to Highway 45 and headed north.  As we backtracked, the storm to our northwest became Tornado Warned.  We eventually caught up to that warned storm and pulled up under the wall cloud and saw the up-close rotation. 




As the storm pulled away, the rotation weakened.  We drove north into the core to get to our east option, Highway 33.  As we passed through Dieterich, Illinois, the hail core had just gone through the south side of town dumping 1"-1.25" hail.




We caught Highway 33 east and ran through more freshly fallen hail.


As we advanced eastward now, another strong storm was approaching to our southeast.  We changed our focus to that storm.  At one point, Nick lets me know he is seeing a funnel cloud dipping down to our southeast.  I got a brief visual on that funnel cloud halfway to the ground.  It was probably associated with the Flat Rock, Illinois Tornado. 

Although I didn't know it at the time, the dash camcorder captured the very distant funnel cloud, maybe a Tornado for a brief glimpse before going back out of view.  This is a zoomed, rather blurry look at it from Highway 33, looking south-southeast.  Could it be touching the ground?        UPDATE:  Confirmed as an EF1 Tornado

The storm was heading toward the east side of Robinson, Illinois and would then cross over into Indiana.    Unfortunately, there is no bridge crossing there.  It was very iffy if we could reach it before the storm flew by us.  I reached the edge of the core and decided to punch through it and battle any hail in hopes of getting a view before it disappeared out of sight in Indiana.  When I came out of the heavy rain, I was greeted with a wall cloud, but I saw no indication of significant rotation.  Any remaining rotation had moved into Indiana as I turned around to head back.



Nick did not punch the core, so that was the last I saw of him.  I headed back west on Highway 33.  Daylight was now turning into darkness as I made my trek toward home.  As I was nearing Effingham, Illinois and Interstate 70 for my route home, it was now completely dark.  But the weather gave me one final surprise.  Right in front of me two Supercells became Tornado warned.  I was in perfect position to intercept them both, but due to chasing solo and in total darkness, I chose to steer around them.



National Weather Service Damage Survey




My thoughts... I do not like chasing solo as there is too much to deal with on top of just driving.  Having Nick take some of that burden off me and take the lead today made this chase enjoyable and successful.  Much Thanks.
Finding another chaser while chasing in Illinois used to be rare.  Certainly not the case today.  No doubt over a hundred chasers were on our storms.  I saw dozens.
Hated missing the opportunity to get the confirmed night tornado as I was in perfect position, but had to play it on the safe side.

Trip Log


8.5 Hours  -  372 Miles

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


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