Because
of my extreme fear of storms I was not allowed to see the movie
Twister, back in 1996 when it debuted, since my parents knew I would
have nightmares. Since I was 3 every night it stormed I would get
freaked out and run to my parents room because I was terrified. By the
time I turned 9, my parents were getting sick of it and couldn't
understand how I could be so fascinated by severe weather, yet also so
SCARED of it. I didn't want to be afraid, but there was something about
having something so powerful coming into your neighborhood every so
often that just made you feel so small and insecure. Nevertheless by
the time I turned 10 my dad agreed that if I went a whole summer
without getting freaked out whenever a storm would come, that he would
take me out chasing. To be honest I have no idea why I even wanted to
go chasing. I watched special after special on TLC and the Discovery
Channel and saw Tim Marshall's, Jim Leonard's, Gene Rhoden, Bobby
Prentice (the list goes on) tornado videos and watched them over and
over and over again. They were my true inspirations in chasing. Since I
was forbidden to see the movie Twister, it was all I had to go by and I
wanted a piece of it. I went the whole summer of 1997 fearless I sucked
it up and stayed in my room and after a while I even started going
outside on my porch to watch what REALLY happens during a storm. Up
until then, all I knew was that it got really dark outside, really
windy, and that it thundered and lightninged for usually 30 minutes and
before I knew it was calm again. True to his word my dad agreed to take
me out the next time severe weather was predicted anywhere within 150
miles of Chicago. All we had was The Weather Channel and WGN TV Tom
Skilling's forecasts. I had no idea about the SPC or what forecasting
meant as I was only 10. I thought that's how the pros did it, look at
meteorologists and go where they tell them to go. Turns out that
couldn't be further from the truth.
Monday,
April 13th, 1998, was the day of interest. I was on Spring Break since
the 10th and was going crazy in anticipation to get the chance to see
Mother Nature and her glory. My dad, my grandfather, and I all set out
down I 57 around 9 AM for Central IL. There was early morning
convection already going on in Central IL (as I would find out the more
I studied severe weather that this was a normal occurrence) and little
to no lightning with it. We darted down I 57 to US 24 and headed west
and hung out at the antique mall as my dad and grandpa both collected
antiques. All we had was map and weather radio and by 1 P.M. the alarm
was going off for a tornado watch. The counties of the watch contained
all the areas South and West of us. We hopped on I 39 and then South on
I 55 until we hit US 136. As we headed west, the sky started getting
dark out west. A severe thunderstorm warning went out for Fulton,
Schuyler, Cass, and Mason counties we were currently on the border of
Mason and Logan counties. As we passed through San Jose, IL, the sky
continued to grow darker and menacing. I would be lying to you if I
said I wasn't getting nervous. Lightning started spouting out on the
western horizon. At the time I had no idea I was looking at a huge gust
front stretching from N to S along the western horizon. All I DID know
was that the sky was dark and full of lightning. As we approached
Havana, the gust front over took us and I was treated to a wonderful
whales mouth just W of Havana. By this time I guess the storm was
gusting out as the gust front hit and there was no precipitation.
This
video was basically the excitement of our chase. Shelf cloud with
whales mouth and core behind it, then we got cored near Chandlersville,
IL, and finally played tried playing catch up to the storm.
Overall
it was a great experience. I learned a bit about structure, the
benefits and struggles of chasing for the first time, and the triumph
of intercepting a decent storm when you don't have the technology
readily available to you.
