June 7 2008 Northern Illinois

Had no intentions of chasing this day, but then had it end up my chase of the year. Most chasers from the area had flocked to Iowa for a moderate risk, but I elected to stay home after 6 straight days of chasing and finishing an 1100 mile drive the night before. I had my girlfriend Tia over, and was just watching the Cubs game that afternoon and decided to check on the situation in Iowa since I knew several people over there chasing. In doing so, I noticed a little boundary nearby from around the Peoria to Bloomington area. Shear in northern Illinois was very favorable for supercells and tornadoes and the June sun and moisture had the atmosphere strongly unstable. SBcape values were around 4500-5000 j/kg with 0-1 km helicity at 450 m/s bullseyed along this boundary. Even so, a strong cap was in place so I wasn't sold enough to give up the air conditioning and Cubs game. However, cu organized, and soon we had returns showing up. A storm popped over Woodford County and in 3 scans had a hook echo and tornado warning. This was enough for me, as new returns were showing up even closer. It was obvious that anything that went on this boundary was primed to go insane. I told Tia she could either head home or hop in the car, but that I though it'd be best if we hit the road now before it was too late. I still was not sold we would get new development closer to Interstate 57, but if we did I wanted to be there. Sure enough, while heading down the interstate we got some returns to show up, and soon had a new supercell in northern Livingston County. It quickly put down a couple tornadoes along Interstate 55. As I approached Kankakee I checked the new mesoanalysis runs. The storm had begun to weaken, but looking at the environment ahead of it I hoped and begged that it was merely cycling. Once I reached the core of the supercell, the radar updated and I said to Tia, "we are golden." The base quickly came into view as scud was being literally inhaled into the base. I said "*&^(*& get my camera!!". We went into another valley and then emerged again and I knew we had a tornado. Rapid rising motion all over, and then sure enough the beast showed itself. Tornado #1 was underway near Wilmington, IL. The pictures and video do way more justice than words will. This was just a big black wedge with all kinds of motion. I shot it for a little bit from my initial location but was going to lose it behind a row of trees so I backtracked a mile and picked up a nice north highway. The tornado took on a new multivortex stage now with erie motion underneath. I called into LOT and let them know we had a significant tornado underway. The tornado soon crossed the road in front of me, sweeping across all kind of debris with it. As I headed east along with it the tornado briefly shrunk down to a nice cone with a snake like vortex underneath but then quickly maxed back out to a healthy stove pipe before eventually calling it quits. As I repositioned for the next tornado I got a view of the awesome structure this supercell had. Wasn't long before I spotted another black wedge under the base. This thing got HUGE when I neared the town of Andres and Wilton Center. A couple cars chugged on past me directly into the path. I suggested out loud that maybe they STOP but a lot of good that was doing. I inched up another mile or so and stepped back out to film the beast. Mentioned to Tia that if she wanted to hear a tornado she could step out now. Sounded like a waterfall in the distance. I followed this tornado closer and closer to more populated areas. I called into LOT again to let them know a large tornado was still on the ground, and they forwarded me to News Radio 780 I believe it was, where I went live on the air. I urged residents to get under ground as this was not your average spring tornado warning, that there was a powerful tornado doing damage in the area. I think this was probably the biggest tornado of the family from this supercell. It eventually roped out, and we immediately had a new wedge. Never seen such a quick transition. Rope out... then a new suction vortex under the near meso... then a new significant tornado almost instantaneous. This tornado became harder to follow. I watched it cross Interstate 57 from a bridge crossing the interstate. Caught it again rain wrapped in the town of Monee. Also caught a glipse of a fourth tornado that touched down briefly and caused EF1 damage for about a mile. I eventually had no choice but to give up and turn back around as I was heading into dense population and the meso had become totally wrapped in rain. We encountered a damage path in Richton Center where the tornado did EF2 damage. Took forever to make our way south because it seemed every highway we took was blocked off due to the damage path. Found one open highway finally, but a semi flew by and snagged some low hanging  powerlines and blew them all over the highway and ended those hopes. After an hour of frustration we took country backroads and finally met up with Interstate 57 in Peotone and made our way back south. I wound up doing a phone interview with The Weather Channel on the drive back. Got home around 10 and spent the next 12 hours dealing with getting video online and to local and national networks. Finally got to bed around 11 am the next day where I found my bed and took a coma. Click here to view video of the tornadoes!

This is the scene we were greeted to upon cresting the top of the hill. My camera lens kept fogging over because we were sitting in td's of about 90/75F and I had been driving with the a/c on.

Tearing up the farmside near Wilmington, Illinois.

It had really good multiple vortex action going on underneath now. Was also hitting a few structures at this point.

Major tornado now...

Reeeeally fun, erie multivortex motion right now. Almost ghostly underneath.

Zoomed in on the main vortex under there.

It's tearing something up now. I really wish I had gone another 1/4 mile up the road to the other side of that house so I could see what.

Obligatory tornado crossing the road shot here. Lots of airborn debris from whatever it hit a few seconds earlier. This is one of my favorite video segments ever.

Main vortex on the back side now goes churning across the road.

Thought it was wrapping it up, but then this vortex came snaking back down.

And boom, we are back to a strong tornado.

Structure shot now, just before the much larger second tornado.

Huge tornado now, near Wilton Center, IL. Take that, Kansas.

You could hear the "tornado roar" on this one.

This is tornado 3 now. I didn't realize it because I had to pass through the small town of Andres, but that massive wedge dissipated and this new tornado developed in the very short amount of time I was in town. This supercell was spitting out wedge tornadoes left and right.

I'm on the phone with WGN radio in Chicago right now live warning the southernn suburbs of this beast. I know it's frowned upon to attempt to rate a tornado as it is in progress but I couldn't stress enough that this was a large tornado capable of severe damage.

It's never good when you are shooting a tornado like this with houses in the foreground. We are getting way too close to the city right now.

The tornado is peaking in intensity at this point. Could very well have been reaching near violent windspeeds right now but it's only kicking up dirt so we'll never know.

Tornado 3 roping out right now with more fun ghostly motions.

Never fear, we already have this new little vortex on the ground to our north.

This is probably 15 seconds after the above image of the initial touchdown. Already a wedge tornado down there, wedge #4. I'm not exaggerating that count either, this is 4 separate mesocyclones each producing large wedge tornadoes.