I met Adam Lucio in
El Paso, IL just around 3 PM and we saw what would be the makings of
those supercells in NE MO/S IA go up. We held out in El Paso a little
longer hoping deep convection would fire up to the SW near STL and head
up this way.....that was not to be. We finally made the decision to head
for Galesburg via I 74 in hopes that the supercells in NE MO would hold
together and make it that far. All day it had been this dreary, damp,
and a windy overcast all across central IL. This wouldn't change. By the
time we hit Peoria, tornado warnings were already evident over Adams
County with a confirmed tornado near La Grange, MO. As we hit Galesburg
around 615 PM the storm was coming into view to the SW. We dipped south
on RT 67 all the way to Roseville. We went west on 116 until we were 3
miles to the N or Raritan. Storm motions were "said" to be N at 55 but
it looked like the core was spreading to the E and we knew we had to get
out of there. We started back east on 116 when Adam and I noticed a
bowl shaped lowering rapidly approaching from the SW. Strong rotation
and a possible tornado was reported with this storm and it was only a
few miles away so we took no chances and headed back east to 67/116 jct.
When we arrived at that intersection the storm looked real ragged and
outflow-y so we decided to let it overtake us. As we were sitting there
about to get cored I noticed the winds to be strong out of the
southwest, in a matter of 30 seconds we experienced several strong
blasts out of the east. Having lost data we could only assume the
couplet was wrapped in rain and passed almost overhead (later analysis
of GR3 confirmed this) We then gave up on the storm and headed north to
Monmouth when Adam spun out into a ditch and I had to go back and help
him while only a matter of miles to our north our outflow-y storm would
produce a rope tornado, captured by Joel Wright and Jeremy Ludin.
Congrats to all who bagged one and to all that had successful chases,
this was a good chase for me because my chase forecast/target ....... was
right on having 10 tornadoes within a 50 mile radius of there.
This was looking
into the direction of the rope tornado
Probably not the way you want to end a chase....
April 10th, 2008 - Roseville, IL
....... was
right on having 10 tornadoes within a 50 mile radius of there.
