January 7 2008 - Havana Illinois Supercell

January 7 2008
Havana, Illinois

Not often that my first chase of the year is in January, certainly not just a week after we rang in the new year! A powerful system was forecast to eject into the midwest on the 7th, and since I was still on my winter break I decided to keep it in the back of my mind. Well, since it isn't very often that I'm thinking about using my winter break for storm chasing nothing was setup in my car. Since the weather was nice the day before I decided to go ahead and get things setup incase the potential for severe weather became a reality when I woke up the next day.

Waking up in the morning it was obvious this was going to be a "wait and see' type chase day. Shear was good, as it often is with these early season setups, but instability was going to be coming at a premium. I sat around until about 1:00 PM when it was decision time. If I didn't leave now and something did form, my odds of catching it before dark were very slim. An area of cumulus was developing near the boundary in western Illinois and eastern Missouri so I went for it. How often do you get to chase in January?

I headed west on Interstate 74 out of Champaign just as a Tornado Watch was issued for much of Illinois, Missouri and Iowa. My radar began lighting up along the Mississippi River and I began to wonder if it truly was January. It certainly had a mid-April feel. I decided to exit I-74 and cut straight west on Highway 136 towards the Havana area. One cell was becoming fairly substantial in size and would hit the Havana area in about an hour so I made that my prelim target. I chatted with Colin Davis a few times as he headed out while I headed down 136.

Severe Thunderstorm Warnings were issued on my cell as I drew ever so near. I'd taken a coke with me when I left and now needed to empty my bladder so I decided to do so and top off the gas tank in Havana before finally intercepting the storm which was now a full fledged supercell. I had to decide if I wanted to commit and intercept on the west side of the Illinois River and risk losing it do to poor roads and quick storm motions, or wait on the east side of the river but risk it being dark by the time it crossed. I decided I wanted to see the storm during daylight, so I crossed the river and plotted my course.

It wasn't long before the base of the supercell came into view. It instantly looked like it had tornado potential, but had that early season grungy look. I pulled off in a clear spot in a farmer's driveway and shot some video of the supercell's base which was complete with a wall cloud and RFD notch wrapping around in front of it. Unfortunately this didn't last long. Other convection was firing all around, and this certainly hampered the cell's ability to organize quickly and I was left with an outflow dominant cell screaming towards me. Rather than drive through the core attempting to get back ahead of it on the other side of the river (which would be almost impossible with storm motions combined with road options in river valley) I stayed put and let the cell overtake me. I called Colin and let him know I was pretty sure we were left with just some outflow mush.

As you can expect with my luck however, 10 minutes into the core a Tornado Warning was issued on our storm and it promptly put down a damaging tornado outside of Havana where I had been 30 minutes ago. It was nearing dark now though, so my odds of actually seeing it had I been in the right spot were probably fairly slim so I didn't beat myself up over it.

The storms had organized into a fast moving bow echo that we'd never catch and wouldn't allow us to see anything if we were to magically get back ahead of it, so Colin and I called it a day and grabbed some Mexican in Canton. I departed Canton around 8 PM and headed back to Champaign very content with a nice kick off to 2008 only 7 days in! On my journey back down Interstate 74 I noticed tornado warnings in Missouri off my radar screen so I switched down to the Springfield, MO radar and couldn't believe what I saw. Six perfect supercells all lined up across the boundary in southern Missouri. Apparently the show was just getting going down there, so once I got home I grabbed a seat and watched the rest of the night unfold.

Total Miles: 320

First view of the supercell just to the southwest of Havana. RFD can be seen punching in ahead of the wall cloud.
Closer view of the wall cloud to my west.
Reality sets in as convection surrounding the supercell disrupts the surface inflow and we're left with a linear mess.
Nothing like a January core.