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.

This day had shown potential to be a nice summer-like severe weather day several days out. I never had any thought of chasing, as it looked like the main threats would be wind and hail from an MCS and line segments.

I was at Six Flags in Gurnee, IL during the late afternoon and evening with my girlfriend. After going on some rides and having some funnel cake we decided to leave and head over the Baskin Robbins down the street for some ice cream. While leaving and heading over there a storm had quickly developed to our east, and became severe as it approached. 

The storm started to hit while we were at Baskin Robbins, so we grabbed our ice cream and headed outside to watch it. It wasn't that interesting at first, and I threw out a comment that it could be better. It did get better, and quickly... Things picked up and we encountered hail up to penny size and winds gusts up to around 40mph. The wind, rain and hail combo put us on the mad dash to my car. Just after getting to in the car a tornado warning was issued for the storm, and looking at radar it was very likely a tornado was on the ground a few miles to our southwest. I decided to stay put and not move our position given the area of rotation was set to pass within our view looking south and southwest, and the road options in the immediate area were not great. Within a few minutes, a lowering came into view to our southwest. I was blocked by a building, so we could not tell if anything was on the ground, even though radar suggested it was likely. The area of interest continued to push into better view, where we saw it was indeed a tornado on the ground. It continued east into better view, as it started to weaken and lift.

Some pictures and video from the chase can be seen below...More pictures can be seen in the 2015 photography section.

This day showed potential several days out. Leading up to the event there was several concerns including how early day convection would evolve, how much destabilization would occur in the wake of this activity, and potential cap (warm air aloft) issues. 

As we moved into the day of the event it was evident the cap was no longer likely to be a major concern, but instead a derecho that formed the previous night in South Dakota and moved across the Plains and into Wisconsin and Illinois during the morning would be an issue. The derecho quickly weakened mid-morning, but left behind widespread convective debris, in the form of widespread cloud cover along with scattered showers and storms. Even into the afternoon hours these issues persisted, with a cluster of severe storms in the Illinois/Iowa border area. Even with these issues, the environment was able to recover rapidly and significantly mid-late afternoon, and scattered storms developed mid-afternoon in Iowa. These storms pushed ESE, two of which moved into NW. Illinois. The dominant storm was located west of Sterling, IL and was moving ESE along a remnant outflow boundary from the early day activity.

Before the storm was mature and was just showing signs of weak rotation, especially aloft, I was pondering whether or not to head out. It would be about a 1 hour and 45 minute drive from where I was at the time. I decided not to, but kept a watch on it. Eventually it was tornado warned, and I decided to pull the trigger and go out after it. At the time I was leaving the storm was still west of Sterling, IL and was turning into an HP supercell. After a quick stop home to get my gear I raced WSW to catch up to it. Along the way there were several tornado reports, and based on radar and reports, they were generally rain-wrapped.

Diving southwest I made it to the far north side Ottawa, IL in time to find a spot to watch the storm move in. Constant lightning illuminated a nicely structured HP storm. Rotation became stronger with a better couplet showing up on radar just as the storm moved from my NNW to ENE. To my north there was a power flash, and at the time I thought I might have gotten a quick glimpse of a rain-wrapped tornado, but I was unsure.

I ended up following the storm east on Route 6, with the main rotation being just a few miles to my north the whole time. I made it to Seneca, IL where I had to stop as the storm had pulled ahead of me a bit, and rotation had once again increase and was crossing the road a few miles ahead of me. At my location there was torrential rain and strong winds. I decided to call it a chase at this point, as I had gotten behind the storm, and a line of storms behind the supercell had also started to move through. 

According to the NWS Chicago surveys there was indeed a confirmed an EF-1 tornado just north of where I was sitting in Ottawa, and would have been where I saw the power flash and thought I had a glimpse of the tornado. In addition to that, I captured the power flash on video, and it seems the power flash illuminates an object in the rain shield. Now whether that was the actually a tornado, scud, or heavier rain/hail, I'll never know for sure. Some pictures of this is below. Also, NWS Chicago confirmed and EF-1 tornado where the area of rotation crossed Route 6 a few miles ahead of me while sitting in Seneca.

Some video from the chase can be seen below.

This day showed potential several days out. There was several concerns including how early day convection would evolve, how much destabilization would occur in the wake of this activity, and direction of lower level winds. All of these potential issues did not have any mitigating effects in the end.

Like usual on local chases I was slow/pessimistic to leave, and didn't get out to door until about 1:45. I had my brother tag along, and we had an initial target of Dixon, given the warm front was in the area and there was and OFB just to the north. We made it to Dixon as an initial storm was moving in. It featured a nice base/lowering for a time, but weakened as it pushed northeast. After it passed we waited in Dixon for quite a while to see how things would play out. New storms developed to our southwest and started to look interesting. We ended up heading through Dixon to make a play on one of the storms, which was now just to our west. This storm went on to be the Rockford tornadic storm. We got a view on it and a nice base/lowering while on the northwest side of Dixon. We continued to follow it north towards White Pines State Park, and then east through Oregon. As we made it east of Oregon we witnessed two brief touchdowns to our north, as the storm was near RFD airport and New Milford at the time. We continued to stair-step northeast with the storm, before finally dropping off of it as we sat south of I-90 and it continued northeast through Boone and McHenry counties.

At this time we headed back south to make a play on the what would become the Rochelle storm. After heading south for just a few miles on Irene Rd we got view of the tornado to our southwest. We pulled off to the side just north of Route 72, as we were in perfect position. We had a good view of the tornado for a decent amount of time, and were within about a 1/2 mile at the nearest point. This tornado probably featured the second best motion I've seen, only behind the Moore '13 and ahead of the Wayne 13' tornadoes. It featured multiple vortices, suction vortices, a horizontal vortex aloft and a satellite tornado that ended up touching down in the field next to us about 1/4 mile away. We continued to jog north/east and stayed with the storm and witnessed what appeared to be two other brief tornadoes to our north (Would have been southwest of Garden Prairie) while on Glidden Rd. NWS Chicago has since confirmed these two brief touchdowns were actually the end of one single tornado that had developed further to the southwest while we were driving.

Unfortunately, this fool left his camcorder on all day so the battery was dead by the time tors started happening, so I didn't get any quality video.

Some pictures and video from the chase can be seen below...More pictures can be seen in the 2015 photography section.

This day was one that looked interesting from several days out. As time went on and the day approached it looked good enough to give it a go and chase. As with every other chase though this season, there were several potential issues including an early day MCS, outflow boundary issues, among other things. 

Adam Lucio and myself left the Chicago area shortly after 3AM early Tuesday morning. We made it into Nebraska and picked an initial target of St. Paul, NE by early afternoon. Sitting in St. Paul for a while, fellow chaser/photographer Matthew Cumberland met up with us. While sitting at this location a severe warned supercell, which eventually further developed into a line, moved northwest-southeast off to our northeast. These storms sent out and OFB, which started to push southward across a good portions of northern Nebraska. After sitting around for a few hours, there were signs of initiation trying to occur just to our west. We made the quick decision to head northwest to get on any potential developing storm. While heading west out of St. Paul this initial attempt at development failed, but a storm that had developed along the OFB to the northwest had quickly become a supercell and was tornado warned. This storm was moving slowly east, thus we headed north to make a play on the storm. 

We made it to and got a good visual on the tornado warned storm as we entered the Greenly, NE area. Visually the storm didn't look that great, and appeared to be outflow dominant. Heading north and the east towards Spalding, NE we entered the "bears cage" of the storm. At this point the storm had started to dive southeast, and we started to stair-step southeast with it, eventually making it to near Archer, NE. During the time we were stair-stepping southeast we encountered strong winds, several periods of severe sized hail, and some interesting motions. After making it to Archer we headed east on route 92 where we got out ahead of the storm and was able to stop a few times for pictures. During this time we also witnessed a long lived and large gustnado. After continuing east for a while ahead of the storm it was clear the storm had pass east of a westward moving outflow boudary, ending any good tornado threat, thus we decided to drop south out of Wahoo, NE to make one last play on the storm and get into the hail core. The storm hit once again while we sat in Ceresco, once again producing several hail, but the largest hail of 2.00"+ ended up passing a few miles to our north. After the storm started to pass we decided to call it a chase and head towards Omaha for dinner. After dinner we decided to just grab a hotel instead of driving back overnight on no sleep through an MCS which covered most of Iowa.

Some pictures and video from the chase can be seen below...More pictures can be seen in the 2014 photography section.