July 1, 2015
I had no intention of chasing at all this day. An MCS had moved through the St. Louis, MO area in the morning and set up a boundary over southern Missouri and the Ozarks. This was to be the focus for supercell development later in the afternoon and evening. However, this is also extremely unfavorable territory to chase in, so when I got off work, I just went home. That evening, I could hear thunder off in the distance. I had checked the radar earlier, and I hadn’t recalled any storms in the area, so I just assumed it was a multi-cell or air mass storm that had popped up nearby. The thunder continued and grew louder and eventually I just couldn’t help myself and ran upstairs to check the radar. Much to my surprise, two supercells were moving southeastward right at us, one right behind the other. I grabbed my gear and quickly headed out the door. I encountered some heavy rain, but fortunately no hail as I punched through the core of the leading storm between Mascoutah and Fayetteville, IL. As I was driving north of Fayetteville, I could see a base and wall cloud to the southwest:
I was tempted to cut west on Highway 15 and drive underneath it, but determined that wasn't a smart move, so I took a left and headed east, skirting the southern edge of the forward flank. Once I got clear of the rain, the meso and wall cloud were visible and lit up slightly by the setting sun. I pulled off the road south of St. Libory, IL for about 10 minutes and watched the storm for a while:
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The lightning was frequent and very close. I continued south on Highway 4 and pulled off again by Prairie State Energy Campus:
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The storm got too close again and I continued south and got on Highway 13, which tracked with it well. It still was holding together, but that couldn’t be said for the trailing storm, which had long ago died off. Thankfully I didn’t go after that one, as it did look better when I had first left. I stopped once more to watch our storm pass over fields as it exhibited a dramatic lowering illuminated by lightning:
Continuing on, I paused again to try to get a few pictures (the best of them below) as the storm began to weaken. Lightning was becoming less frequent and distinct lightning bolts were hard to pick out, as the entire storm was now surrounded by stratiform rain. I gave up once we got close to Pinckneyville, IL, as the terrain is terrible around there and I felt it was going to die soon, which it did. It was a decent chase for it being local and a surprise.
