More isolated supercells were
possible across Illinois this afternoon. I had just returned from
Kansas the night before so I was not overly impressed with the idea of
chasing another marginal setup. I was still without my car thanks to
the Iowa blown tire adventure. I had Tia pick me up from Mark's place
in Morton around 10 am, and we headed back to Champaign. We had some
lunch and I filled her in on all the thrilling details of the busts the
two prior days.
Soon, it became evident that southwest Illinois was actually becoming
primed for supercell thunderstorms. A few returns began showing up
closer to Champaign so I decided to give chase, and opt for the closer
stuff rather than head further southwest for nothing.. We intercepted a
cell just west of Tuscola, which actually began taking on a nice radar
appearance. I needed to get some gas and something to sip on, and
things were taking their time so we made a quick stop in Tuscola. I
dropped south out of town and was thrilled with what I saw. This storm
was rapidly taking on a beautiful supercell appearance. I sat south of
Tuscola, convinced I'd be watching a tornado in an hour. However, after
doing some repositioning, as quickly as it went up the storm began
fading. All along I was thinking that the storm would only get better
and better so I didn't even snap any photos of the supercell in it's
prime. I grabbed one shot of the storm as it began falling apart, but
this didn't make up for what I'd missed document. It was a beautiful
storm.
Another storm did the same thing. Went up quickly, took on
supercellular structure, only to cave back in on itself with the lack
of upper level support.
Meanwhile, the storm in southwest Illinois went nuts producing several
storms and simply being an overall beast. 2009 lives on.
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