March 15th, 2016 Macomb, IL Supercell/Bust

Tornadoes: 0

Highest Wind Gust: 40 mph (estimated)

Largest Hail: 1.5"

Accomplishment: First solo chase!

With unusually warm weather for late winter, a triple point play was setting up in west-central Illinois. Moisture was in question, but the day had serious potential. The SPC had issued an Enhanced Risk with an area of 10% tornado probabilities in west-central Illinois.

I was stuck at school but I was able to get out early, around 2 PM, and drive out to McDonald's in Monmouth to meet Paul Sieczka and others from College of DuPage and NIU. By that time, an MD for a likely tornado watch was out. Soon after, the watch came out.

As the watch went out, we moved south from Monmouth to Macomb, watching a barber pole updraft on a developing supercell to our west. Positive CGs flung out miles ahead of the storm, many landing to my east. Unfortunately, since I was alone and focused on driving, I don't have much documentation of this of much of the stuff from the rest of the chase. There is still some though.

As I arrived in Macomb, there were two supercells worth watching. One to the east, just northwest of Macomb, and one west, on the Mississippi River. The one to the east went tornado warned, but I thought the LCLs on it were too high and proceeded west to the western cell. Before this, however, I stopped on a bridge on the west side of Macomb to meet up with Paul again, watching the eastern supercell churn eastward.

The western supercell:

At this point, it became clear that the western cell (which I was aiming for) wasn't worth pursuing any longer. I had to go back all the way through Macomb if I wanted to catch back up...which wasn't an easy task during rush hour in a decently sized town. After 10 or 15 minutes stuck in traffic, I was able to weave my way out of there, just in time to watch the dissolving occlusion of the western supercell's updraft spin itself out to my NNW. It was pretty obvious at this point that I needed to race east if I wanted any shot of catching back up. I floored it east, along with several other chasers that I was part of a line of, trying to get back ahead. For a while, all I was able to gain visual of was multiple occluded circulations dying out, meanwhile still being behind the RFD of new ones. Finally, I was able to hook slice through RFD and gain visual on a rotating wall cloud just before dark. Hail was falling at this time, and motion was decent; however, no tornado came from it.

I took the next road option north to try and get as close as I could safely get to the circulation in case it dropped a tornado. Of course, it didn't. Deciding to end the chase there, I punched the core as I continued north, getting into up to at least half dollar sized hail, but maybe as high as isolated tennis balls at times. My car was getting slammed, and I was afraid I would start cracking my windshield. Fortunately, that didn't end up happening, but I did get some nasty dings and dents (which I just consider battle scars).

I drove home, watching an intense lightning display as I headed eastward. At one point, I came across some firefighters pulled over at a rural intersection. As I stopped, they came to my window and said there had been a tornado visible through the lightning only a few minutes before. I didn't even think to look for one, even though it was literally right in front of me out my windshield as I was driving, since I'd just assumed storms were messy at this point, and any tornadoes wouldn't be visible from the west. This was the biggest hit, as it was such a stupid mistake. I missed the Trivoli EF2 because I wasn't paying attention to the tornado RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE. Ugh...

Overall an extremely disappointing chase. The first legitimate setup of the year, and I messed it up. Big time. Although, meeting up with Paul and the others for the first time out in the field was a blast. I just wish I hadn't been chasing alone in my vehicle, since it's not nearly as easy as you'd think.

Chase Summary Video: