Despite the forecast of severe weather, it wasn’t really on my mind today. Charles had his first college visit, so the focus of the day was the University of Chicago. I saw some deep convection as we drove down I-65, so I opened RadarScope. I noticed a tornado warning to our southwest, so I figured “what the hell?”

I took the US 231 exit and drove through White County. As we approached Round Grove, I could see a lowering, so we turned west on White County Road West 1100 South (location). Unfortunately, it fell apart almost immediately.

When the rain shaft reached us, I continued back down US 231 through Montmorenci. The storms west of Greater Lafayette looked marginally interesting, so I continued south on Jackson Highway to SR 26. After a brief pause at the Purdue Airport, we decided to go home. I made a quick bio break, grabbed my camera, and set off again solo.

By that point, the storm in southwestern Tippecanoe County was looking interesting, so I headed southeast on US 52. The storm showed broad rotation on radar, but had no warnings at the time. I stopped at the Marathon station on Dale Drive.

I was almost directly under the rotation, which seemed like a suboptimal location, so I dropped south and then headed east on Tippecanoe County Road East 550 South. I turned north on CR South 1075 East and stopped at the railroad crossing just south of SR 38. At some point during the drive, Indianapolis issued a severe thunderstorm warning for this storm. Although the storm looked decent on radar, it was not particularly impressive visually.

I continued to head northeast and the appearance improved quickly. On Clinton County Road West 550 North, I stopped along with a few other storm enthusiasts.

I watched for about five minutes. As the storm continued to move, I decided to continue following it east. By the time I reached Rossville, the storm seemed like it was falling apart for good. Since I was almost out of daylight, I decided to call it a night.

For an unplanned chase, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Except I wish I had paid attention to the ISO setting on my camera and not used 3200.