Yesterday and Tomorrow

Managed another decent chase yesterday. As I had a hunch, the models where way off on handling yesterday's setup. Seemed the models were keeping thing way too far south, so I kept my day open. Sure enough, around 4 PM cells rapidly fired across central Illinois, and I picked one off around Clinton. Followed it for it's entire track across eastern Illinois, letting it go near the Indiana border watching it's backside as it scooted away. The storm wound up pretty tight a couple times, but struggled with being elevated much of it's life span.

Not a bad chase op at all though. I've seen two great supercells in two days without filling up my gas tank, and still have over a half a tank left.

Tomorrow is a tough call. I think there will be tornado reports, and it's obvious they'll be on the warm front, but they could end up anywhere from central Illinois (maybe even western Indiana) all the way to southern Nebraska. I'm inclined to say southern Iowa looks the best right now, right along the IA/MO border, but western Illinois looks half decent as well and I'd never let it go if I missed the only Illinois tornado show of 09 because I was in Iowa. It is Iowa though, so it will produce if I don't go, and won't produce if I do. Right now my gut says the best parameters are over southern Iowa, and my brain says "Don't do it, Illinois will find a way to go nuts the second you cross the River". I guess I'll decide tomorrow.

Target in Illinois would be the Peoria area, and in Iowa I'd do the Creston to Osceola area.

Couple photos from yesterday:

Wall cloud near Arcola, IL exhibiting the best rotation of the day: