Heading in to this day, there was some potential for severe t'storms and a possible local chase. The main questions were how much destabilization would occur, and where the warm front would set up.

A supercell ended up developing out of elevated convection moving into North-Central Illinois during the early afternoon. I ended heading out and intercepting the storm near Ashton IL, a bit after it had gone tornado warned. Upon arriving, the storm was interacting with the warm front, and made a serious attempt at wrapping up and producing. Unfortunately, due to the warm front being in a NW/SE orientation, there was a small window of opportunity to produce..in which it did not succeed. I followed along east with the storm for a bit longer just in case it tried to do something interesting, before dropping off of it and ending the short chase. On the way home, another storm developed and went severe/tor warned south of the original storm. It was well north of the warm front, even so tried its best to do something...but ultimately failed as well.
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If the warm front would have been oriented more W-E instead of NW/SE, along with not retreating SW, activity likely would have been able to latch on to the boundary, and would have had a better chance at producing and would have had longevity. 

Some pictures from the chase can be seen below...More pictures can be seen in the 2019 photography section.

This day looked like a potential severe t'storm/tornado outbreak-like day across the area, having similarity to other high end area events, such as 6/5/2010. There were very few concerns heading into this day overall.

I ended up heading out just after noon, with a target of near or just south of I-80...Between I-74 and I-39. Ended up passing a first initial supercell that pushed across the south Chicago metro, just as it was starting to get going in the far SW suburbs. However, I decided to not chase it, given it was heading into the metro and could put me out of position for the main activity expected further west. On the drive down I was also watching the cluster of tornadic supercells pushing from SE. Iowa into W. Illinois, but was not fond of how messy and clustered they were. Stuck with the original plan and I made it to Princeton, IL, prior to 2PM. By this time a few supercells had developed near MLI, and were starting to slowly mature and push east. I grabbed some food really quick in Princeton, before heading after the better looking storm just as it went tor warned off the the northwest. I reached the storm as it was approaching Deere Grove, IL. At this time, the storm was outflow dominant and fighting other storm development nearby. Continuing to stair-step east with this storm, to north and northeast of Walnut, IL, the storm continued to be fairly outflow dominant, as it ingested another storm or two...However, there was one point that it did seem to make an effort to organize for a sort time, with even a more concentrated area of rotation/lowering. I continued east with this storm through the Sublette, IL area, eventually reaching Route 251. Through this point the storm continued to be outflow dominant, and there was also widespread additional t'storm develop, which would hamper further potential with this storm. At this point I called it a chase and headed home.

It appears that a remnant MCS over Missouri, and possibly the early developed cluster of supercells that pushed across SE. Iowa/W. Illinois, are possibly two factors in why the potential across E. Iowa and N/C. Illinois was not realized. However, a significant severe t'storm and tornado event did unfold further east, across Indiana and Ohio.

Some pictures from the chase can be seen below...More pictures can be seen in the 2019 photography section.

This day had shown potential of being an early season severe weather event for a big portion of the Central U.S. for several days preceding it, and it ended up coming to fruition. There appeared to be two areas of higher potential, with the northern one being across the heart of Illinois, and the other being in the vicinity of the Mississippi River/Ohio River area. The northern play was my only viable option to chase, and was nice to see being closer to home for the first event of the season, an early one at that. 

My target area for the day was in W. and C. Illinois, near and just south of I-80. Storms were initially expected to develop late in the afternoon, with early sunset being a potential issue as well as fast storm motions. As the day of progressed, it became clear storm initiation would occur earlier, during the mid-afternoon. Storms indeed ended up developing earlier, with initiation in E. Iowa during the mid-afternoon hours. These storms quickly became discrete as they pushed ENE into NW and W. Illinois.

We left DeKalb a bit later than I wanted, as storms were already moving into the Moline to Galesburg to Macomb areas. We were heading south on I-39 towards La Salle, when one of the lead supercells became tornado warned down that way. We approached from the north driving into portion of the core, experiencing 40mph+ winds and penny sized hail. Unfortunately due to traffic, we fell behind the storm a bit, and got onto I-80 as the storm was moving towards Ottawa. At this point I had to make the decision to continue trying to catch-up to this storm we had been following, or down south the the far southern severe storm, that had nothing around it to mitigate its potential as it matured. The decision was made to continue with our current storm, and we quickly became stuck in traffic once again just NW of Ottawa as a tornado was in progress just a few miles to our SE. We ended up getting out of traffic, making a quick jump trough the non-damaged north side of Ottawa where we got on Route 6. Still behind the storm and trying to catch up, the winding Route 6 along the Illinois River made it difficult to catch up, but we finally did as we approached Morris. At this time we caught a glimpse of the lowering, and potentially the end of the Marseilles tornado. Getting into Morris we decided to drop off this storm, as rotation was weakening and it was heading into he more populated metro area shortly. 

From there, we decided to head SW to the other tornadic supercell in the area. We ended up intercepting the storm near Ransom, IL. By this time this storm was was showing signs of weakening as well, and we let it pass us by. Well after dark at this point with no other decent looking storms around, we called it a chase and headed home.

As usual, this day had shown potential several days out. The potential varied on model guidance, with a few potential issues showing up as well. Timing, ongoing storm activity through the day and associated cloud debris, veer-back wind profiles, and surface wind direction were all potential issues ahead of time. Timing ended up working out in the end, but the other two issues were still a problem, along with moisture return further north across N. MO.NE. KS/IA as well.

We left early Wednesday morning, with an initial target in the vicinity of Emporia,KS along the dry line. Making it to Des Moines before noon, the decision was made to play the triple point in E. NE/IA instead. This decision was based on ongoing activity in OK/KS/MO/AR potential creating problems with the initial KS target. We sat in Des Moines for a few hours watching things, before finally heading southwest to Atlantic, IA.

While sitting in Atlantic for a while, there were a few attempts at storm initiation to our west along the dry line and to the northwest along the surging cold front racing southeast. Eventually a storm did develop along the intersection of the cold front and dry line to the west of us. At the same time, a storm developed well to our southeast in S. Iowa. Both storms slowly matured, with the storm to our southeast becoming interesting a bit more rapidly. After pondering which storm to go after for a bit, we decided to head northwest towards the storm on the triple point, even though there was a good chance it would be undercut by the surging cold front. While heading towards this storm, the storm that had developed in S. IA quickly began to weaken, and eventually diminished.

Upon making it to our storm, it was already being undercut by the surging cold front. Unfortunately, this was the only interesting storm in the area, so we continued to follow it. There storm stayed just on the north side of the boundary, which kept it somewhat interesting, as it pushed ENE. We tracked the storm east to Des Moines, before finally dropping off of it and calling it a chase.

Some pictures from the chase can be seen below.

This day showed potential to be the first chase day of the season several days out. Leading up to the event the main question in the end was available moisture, and how high dew points would get, which would dictate the tornado potential. 

We left home late morning, with a target area in far Western Illinois, likely in the Keokuk to Hannibal corridor. We made it out to Jerseyville, IL by mid afternoon, we we decided to sit and wait for initiation to occur further south, and initiation had already occurred further north. Some time passed, and there were finally some attempts at initiation just to our southwest. Unfortunately the first few attempts failed, before things finally took off and two supercells formed.

We had a nice view of the northern supercell, which slowly matured. I featured a nice structure, which included a nicely sculpted meso, and produced some marble (0.50") hail at our location. This storm showed some broad and weak rotation, but never could do more than that. During this time, the supercell to the south was also maturing, and was looking a bit better. We ended up heading east on I-72 to make a play on the southern storm. While heading east the southern supercell gained some weak rotation and became tornado warned, while the northern supercell started to fade as the southern one became more dominant. 

Continuing east on I-72 to New Berlin, and then south on a side road, we got view of the storm continued to have wall clouds and funnel clouds from time to time. While heading ENE on Old Route 54 to the southwest of Curran, rotation quickly tightened up, and a tornado touched down. The tornado was never fully condensed, with the visible funnel only halfway to the ground, but a bowl of dirt/debris was visible on the ground under the funnel. The tornado persisted several minutes as it pushed northeast towards Springfield, but luckily it lifted before moving into town and more populated areas. This tornado was rated an EF-1 by NWS ILX.

We continued to followed this supercell storm northeast for several more hours, as it continued to have a wall cloud from time to time. We eventually dropped off of it near Kankakee, as it was overtaken by a line of severe storms.

Some pictures from the chase can be seen below...More pictures can be seen in the 2016 photography section.