Tag Archives: wall cloud

Chase results: 3 April 2026 in West Central Indiana

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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.

A wall cloud under a thunderstorm. A gravel road crosses in the foreground.
Lowering on the tornado-warned storm over Benton County as seen from near Round Grove. Taken approximately 2154Z. View is to the west-southwest.

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.

Ragged cloud base behind a Marathon gas station sign.
View of the storm from southeast of Lafayette. Taken approximately 2300Z. View is to the southwest.

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.

A brightly-lit lowering
A brightly-lit lowering
A lowering from a thunderstorm with a rain shaft behind
Photos of a lowering on the storm approaching Rossville as seen from CR West 550 North. Taken approximately 2320Z. View is to the north.

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.

Chase results: 26 June 2021 near Hoopeston, IL

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On Friday, I was looking at the radar and I thought “gee, that storm a few miles away from me looks like it might have a little bit of rotation.” I talked myself out of it. This means, of course, that it produced two tornadoes an 18 minute drive from my house. On Saturday when I saw some storms getting their spin on in central Illinois, I refused to be fooled again. So I woke my girlfriend from a nap and we got in the car heading toward Paxton.

As we pulled into Hoopeston, I had a choice to make. There were some cells popping up from Paxton to Mahomet that looked interesting but not particularly spinny. The main squall line was meh except further north. I had to pick an option. My risks were basically “nothing happens” to the south or “stuff happens but you can’t see it” to the north. Given the choices, I decided to engage to the south.

Storm 1

  • Screen shot of radar reflectivity (top) and storm relative velocity (bottom) from KILX at 4:24 PM CDT.
  • Screen shot of radar reflectivity (top) and storm relative velocity (bottom) from KILX at 4:43 PM CDT. The circled storm was the first one I targeted after getting into Illinois.

We turned down IL 1 toward Rossville. I figured we’d cut west from there to get under the storms. Unfortunately, the storms were speeding up, and I quickly decided that staying near IL 9 was the better option. We took a county road back north and made it all the way to IL 9 when we encountered a flooded roadway. With John Fausett in mind, we turned around (and didn’t drown) after driving about half a mile in reverse. We picked the next county road west and went north.

The storm was near Rankin at this point and it seemed to be showing some signs of rotation. We stopped to watch it for a few minutes and saw some lowerings, but there was no spinning.

  • View to the north of the first storm. Taken at 5:14 PM CDT just south of IL 9 from N 1300 E Road.
  • Lowerings from the first storm. Taken at 5:17 PM CDT about 1 mile northwest of Hoopeston. View is to the north-northwest.
  • Screen shot of radar reflectivity (top) and storm relative velocity (bottom) from KILX at 5:26 PM CDT. Location and direction of view as given on the image.
  • View of the second storm from the first storm position. Taken at 5:28 PM CDT. View is to the southwest.

After a few minutes, it was time to reposition again. The storm had become uninteresting, so I decided to follow it’s friend slightly to the south. From our position looking southwest, it looked pretty nice.

Storm 2

We dropped south a bit to meet it and then followed east and a little north to watch it further. At that point, we were a little east of Wellington. The lowering maybe showed a little bit of weak rotation, but it was never obvious. After a few minutes, it became an mess.

  • Lowering from the second storm. Taken at 5:35 PM CDT from about 2 miles north of Hoopeston. View is to the northwest.
  • Screen shot of radar reflectivity (top) and storm relative velocity (bottom) from KILX at 5:38 PM CDT. Location and direction of view as given on the image.
  • Lowering from the second storm. Taken at 5:50 PM CDT from about 2 miles east of Wellington. View is to the northwest.
  • Lowering from the second storm. Taken at 5:51 PM CDT from about 2 miles east of Wellington. View is to the northwest.

The end

These storms were basically done (although there was a report of a funnel cloud near Earl Park, IN later). There were some tornado warnings in the line near Villa Grove. After driving through near-zero visibility on the east side of Hoopeston, we went south on IL 1 for a little bit. But after a few minutes, the line looked less interesting and it didn’t seem worth staying out for. Also, the bag of Combos that I ate was not a reasonable dinner.

We managed to beat the line back to Lafayette by 5-10 minutes. For an unplanned chase, I’m okay with how this turned out. I feel like the decisions I made were reasonable, which was not a given considering I haven’t seriously chased in ten-plus years. Missing a photogenic tornado minutes from my house still stings, but I feel good about doing this again in the future.