"Storms and darkness scared me, but somehow it encouraged me to learn about nature, and I think nothing is dark. Dark is beautiful too." - Bai Ling
This quote hits home, because this is the reason I got interested in studying meteorology in the first place. Race day weekend 2004 when I was a mere 8 years old, a tornado swept through the back yard during our family cookout. Before then, I was scared of storms. But, after seeing the power of nature, I became very intrigued and wanted to see more. That is what led me to want to storm chase and capture the beauty of nature on camera.
April 9, 2015
I had storm chased a handful of times locally with JT before this day, and we had seen some rotating storms, large hail cores, and some nice supercellular storms. Nothing too major, though. However, I didn't know that today I would see my first tornado!
Right after my classes ended for the day, I left to meet JT in Indianapolis to head west into central Illinois to chase the Enhanced Risk day. The sun was bright, and the skies were clear as we headed into the Illinois warm sector. As time grew later into the afternoon, instability had strengthened and storms were developing in western Illinois. After stopping for gas in east-central Illinois, Navigator JT accidentally went north on the interstate instead of west.
However, in making that small mistake, we approached a supercell near Chillicoth, Illinois which had produced a tornado just eight minutes before we arrived. The storm was cycling when we got there, and we thought maybe it would produce another tornado. It didn't drop another tornado, but there were many funnel clouds that we captured on camera. After this storm seemed to die as it headed to our east, we decided to head back southwest toward our original target area.
We made our way toward Peoria, Illinois where we chased another supercell through dirt roads just outside of the city. Side note- little Chevy Sonics aren't great on dirt roads. We thought for sure this cell would produce as we watched it rotate for miles and were in awe at its well-defined wall cloud. But, to no avail, the storm never produced. However, we weren't too disappointed because of the amazing structure of this storm!
After we chased this cell through downtown Peoria and it didn't produce, JT was wanting to head back home. However, I had other ideas. There was one lonely cell to our southwest that I had been watching cycle on radar. It took me a few minutes to convince JT that we had nothing better to do and that we were so close, so why not chase it? Finally, I won that battle and we headed for this cell. We knew timing would be very close due to how far away we were at the time and the path of the storm. However, we ended up getting there JUST in time! As we caught up with the back side of the storm, it dropped a tornado!
Here is a link to the brief (and unfortunately out of focus) video I captured as we watched the tornado move through a field near Taylorville, Illinois: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm01U5ilbH4
Due to the rain and the low light as the sun was setting, the video and pictures weren't very clear on their own. Here's an enhanced-contrast version of the Taylorville tornado that JT and I chased that night! We were so excited after seeing our first tornado of the season, and my first ever! It was ranked as an EF-1 tornado, and only damaged trees and crops in the field. No homes, buildings, or people were hurt.
Overall, it was a GREAT chase day for us! Not only did we capture a tornado, but we saw other amazing storm structures as well. It's funny how that one simple mistake of going the wrong way on the interstate earlier in the day probably led us to the best storms of the day.
Location: Illinois
Service: Storm Chasing
Price: Can be expensive!
Website: N/A