I viewed GR3 and saw nothing on radar....I mean nothing! It looked like a blob of rain, but yet the sirons were going off. I was absolutly confused on this chase! On the road I ran into some fellow chasers who as well were confused and could not spot anything remotely resembling severe weather.
I continued north to interecept another cell which had claims of producing a tornado off of RT47 and RT64. I ran into Ben and Cliff who were heading in the same direction as I was, north to Huntley. As we entered Huntley IL. the tornado sirons stared to blair again! We were in awe as we looked around and saw nothing again! Blue patch there, another blue patch there, light rain and NOTHING on radar...
At this point we wanted to continue north on RT47, however Ben at this point realized he had a flat tire and he could not continue. I travled a bit north to see if I could view anything and saw a small shelf, but nothing else. There were many low lying scud clouds resembling a possible funnel cloud but nothing else.
I pulled back around and headed back to Ben and Cliff to see what help I could be. Local law enforcment pulled up to use to check to see if we were ok. We spoke to them for awhile about the sirens going off and we how we were unsure as to why they went off. Turns out the public had reported funnel clouds, which I'm sure were just low lying scud clouds.
After Ben fixed his flat, we knew we couldn't meet back up to the "severe storm" that continued north. So we headed back to view the damage of the possible tornado that was reported. I was fixed on the thought that it had to have been straight line winds or a possible microburst. (However after viewing the damage today, I realized it was in fact a tornado). We couldn't get down the road to view the damage as there was down power lines. So at this point we called it and heading home.
WOW great pictures Matt!!!! So glad you have such a "scary" (to me!) but also enlightening & terrific hobby. Be safe and have fun..xoxoxo Mom
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