Monday started off with thinking not much of anything was going to happen for the day. SPC had a Slight Risk for the day with possibilities of 2 or more tornadoes. I had thought of heading out west for the day and chasing, but decided to stay at home and see if anything would unfold.
It was when I was in line at the grocery store go figure that the cashier had made mention there was a tornado watch which put me rushing home to see just what was going on. After looking at radar I quickly headed out originally heading for Rockford. I changed course along the way, my thought was the southern storm would produce which also had rotation within the storm already. I should have stayed north as about an hour later it put down a EF2 near Rockford!...
I made good time and intercepted the southern storm near Earlville IL. South of DeKalb and followed it to Hinckley. I started taking photos and watch as things were coming together. I decided to shoot further south so I could trail along side it. On a random gravel road I happen to run into Skip Talbot (http://www.skip.cc/chase/101122/), so we teamed up and I followed behind. As soon as we got back on the road I started to get pelted by severe hail, this is where I picked up a few new dents to the new jeep.
A few minutes later it became Tornado Warned and things were looking good. However I quickly fell into the core and played catch up trying to get a good view, but didn’t have much luck. We stayed on the storm all the way back to South Elgin where a few minutes before the Tornado Sirens had been going off. Looking at radar there wasn’t much that was going to take place and it would be difficult to keep up in the burbs with how fast the storms were moving so the chase was called. It was a great time out for a last year chase in November, no complaints from me here!
If I realized I would have not have been able to keep up, I would have pulled over and taken some photos. These are some shots taken while trying to keep up, it is not easy to hold the camera out the window while driving at 60+mph..
