May 24

Chase Accounts

May 24, 2006 NORTH CENTRAL ILLINOIS

Chased with Scott Kampas and Darin Kaiser today and saw a leading edge tornado on the South side of Peoria, IL around 3:38 p.m. The swirling dust was all the to the cloud base before the video was taken. It took Scott almost a minute to get his camcorder out from under all the other junk in the car because it took us off guard as we were en route to our target area near Moline, IL. The video is not the best as it was shot while we were in motion on I-474. It was on the ground for a little under 3 minutes. Here is a link to Scott's video. After the Peoria surprise we went up towards Moline and a storm eventually blew up near Morrison, IL. We were on it from towering cumulus to full development. The storm had the best looking beaver's tail I have ever seen in Illinois. Numerous other chasers were also in the area including the DOW 3 team and Tornado Intercept Vehicle just to name a few. We followed the storm East through Lee County where near Paw Paw, it developed a nice wall cloud and rfd clear slot. We then continued East and then called the chase off in Se De Kalb County.

Whiteside/Lee/De Kalb Counties