March 10

Sophie Miller's forecast disscusion in Agronomy Hall the night before the severe weather setup on March 9.

Going over the game plan for the chase on March 10 after the meeting. Team of 4, with Andrew Griffiths , Sam Tower, and Tyler Hoss.

Stopping in Davenport, IA for gas on the way to Wyoming, Illinois. Fun gas prices for us...

Always love driving through areas I have never been while on the way to the target area during chases.

Crossing into Illinois for the first time!

Finally getting south of the warm front at 3:17 pm near Geneseo, IL and the sun comes out.

Supercell Initiation to our southeast near Bloomington, IL, this is out of reach. Despite Andrew getting antsy and a collective brief consideration to be on it, the team decides to stand our ground, and wait patiently for our target to fire.

Severe supercell continues to explode way to our east.

Sitting in Wyoming, IL around 4:30 pm.

4:26 pm reflectivity radar of the severe storm to our east. Note the obsured amount of chasers on the storm.

Storm to our east begins to show anvil backshear. Three of our colleaques are currently closing in on this storm. This cell would go on to write its name in the history books, not only producing multiple intense and unfortunately deadly wedge tornadoes including the Kankekee EF3, but would drop hailstones up to 6-inches accross! With some unconfirmed reports possibly even larger, making it the largest hail in Illinois history.

Monster Kankekee supercell continues to generate a massive anvil cloud, with an overshooting top poking out minutes later.

Andrew notices the shourtwave coming in on mesoanalysis about to impinge on our target area, setting the stage for monster supercells over the next few hours.

Watching the skies to our west for updraft towers and storm initiation.

Failed but photogenic storm updraft to our north.

Updraft bases to our west while repositioning westward as storms initiate.

Maturing thunderstorm to our west seen near Victoria, IL at around 6 pm.

Zoomed in view of birds about a mile or so away doing some very weird things.

Storm becomes supercellular and grows severe, obtaining visual supercell characteristics. Note the lowering on the left, knowing that we have more supercells coming up behind, we we what this storm has to offer, although I am conserned about it crossing the warm front into cool/stable surface air.

Storm becomes tornado warned around 6:35 pm

Storm now a full on supercell mear Kawanee gaining strength rapidly after coming super close to droping a tornado, with a wall cloud and textbook "horseshoe" RFD clear slot on the left. Positive lightning CG lightning strikes also ramp up in frequency.

Extremely stressed while trying to juggle and multitask the chase, scanning the sky for funnels and tornadoes with the whole mesocyclone right over our heads, filming, monitoring the other supercells to our southwest headed our way, negotiating plans with the team, and relaying and posting critical warning information as an admin for my Kansas City severe weather Facebook group of thousands of people while my neighborhood back home in KC was taking hail up to grapefruits with tornado warnings nearby.

Elongated meso stretching to our south makes it hard to pinpoint areas of danger as we move east. We debate stopping to let it pass before continuing, but the team decides to continue east, which has me a bit freaked out and in disagreement on the inside as we notice lowerings forming to our south, which could square up with us eventually due to their northeast movement. Regardless, I have a job to do.

Ominous lowering to the south which we though definitely had tornadic potential.

Possible inflow tail looking northwest from our location.

Was able to grab a lightning exposure shot showing the beautiful structure of the now elevated monster supercell to our west after puching out east ahead of it. Feels freezing cold as the storm has now gone north of the warm front into the northeasterly lake breeze, effectively ending its tornado threat.

Radar of the supercell at 7:34 pm.

We switch gears to the new supercell coming out of western Illinois that is to our southwest. Tornado warning issued around 7:53 pm as the storm a been cyclically producing tornadoes on its way to us.

Seen from near Lacon, IL at 7:59 pm, lightning reveals linear patterns in the sky pointing northwest towards the supercell's updraft, indicating strong inflow.

8 pm radar reflectivity and velocity presentation of the storm as a weak tornado is on the ground in front of us, which we did not know of at the time despite seeing suspicious things during lightning strikes.

Looking NW at the storm's base with a textbook wall cloud and inflow tail. The tornado (likely uncondensed and invisible) is lurking in the frame somewhere out of our knowledge.

Wall cloud draws closer, we reposition further east soon after.

Exposure shot of the storm near Varna, IL with spooky sirens in the background. The tornado lifts shortly before this capture with a new cycle starting up.

8:32 pm radar as the circulation reintensifies to our north near Wenona, IL with more tornado reports trickling in.

Suspiciously shaped rain shaft to our north as well as a suspicious feature right to the right of it. We are convinced a rain-wrapped tornado is in progress somewhere in here and Tyler and I keep our eyes peeled for power flashes.

More and more chasers who left the Kankekee, IL supercell early begin to arrive on the scene.

Rain filled bear's cage of the supercell after possibly seeing powerflashes, though the storm seems to be weakiening.

We decide to get dinner in Peru, IL, but a cell triggers a tornado warning near town. 9:39 pm radar:

Tornado-warned cell approaching right as we arrive with sirens going off on the edge of town.

Tyler enjoying Culver's after the long day before making the drive back to Ames, IA.