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First chase of the year for me across Central Illinois. I knew from  the data in the morning that if enough moisture was there, things could get real interesting later in the afternoon. If the dew points were 5 degrees  higher, then all hell would have broke loose across Central IL.  Numerous supercells developed across Central Illinois during the afternoon and evening. The most potent of the cells developed over the Peoria area around 2:30 P.M. I was stuck at work until 3 P.M. and could not leave early. I met up with Darin Kaiser at the Morton McDonald's  at 3:05. He told me about the nice wall cloud and high based funnels that he observed around East Peoria at 2:40 or so. The cell that he saw it was tornado warned around the same time. The wall cloud most likely was visible  form where I work, but I could not see it because I work on the South side of the building and the wall cloud was 4 miles to the NW.  We tried to catch up to the cell, but eventually gave up on it in far NW Livingston county because it was moving too fast.  This cell apparently did produce a brief tornado near Metamora and also near Streator. We decided  then to go West and intercept another low topped supercell that developed across Northern Woodford County. This cell visually was not that impressive and  only exhibited a somewhat organized rfb for a while across NW Livingston County. We managed to meet up with  chasers Amos Magliocco and Kurt Hulst in NW Livingston County and from there we eventually decided to go after a cell near Bloomington and then went after a cell near Champaign (see pic above). Even though I missed out on the best stuff near Peoria because of work,  it was a nice first chase of the year and I got to witness several low topped supercells with almost all of them exhibiting back sheared anvils and at times overshooting tops. All but the original Peoria tornado warned cells were somewhat high based.  Dew points that day were in the upper 50's. If they were 5 degrees higher, then most likely there would have been a nice mini tornado outbreak across Central Illinois. 

Copyright  © 2006 Mark Sefried