5-April 1997:

Today's storm chase turned out to be a pleasant surprise. We forecasted, positioned, and enjoyed a day where most chasers decided to stay home. This was mostly due to less favorable model runs and the SPC Day 1 Convective Outlook. Early Saturday, SPC had a slight risk of thunderstorms extending from Nebraska eastward to east-central Iowa. But after analyzing the University of Wisconsin Storm Models, we felt that severe thunderstorms were a strong possibility in western Illinois. Though we were lacking strong instability, and had to deal with a "dirty" warm sector and a decaying cold front, we packed up the cars and hit the road.

We took I-80 west into Illinois and pushed into the Quad Cities by 1:30pm. Once we crossed the mighty Mississippi River, we stopped at the first Iowa rest stop and glanced at the DTN Radar site. Storms were blowing up throughout central Iowa and a squall line was beginning to form along the Mississippi iver. It appeared that with the peaks of sun breaking through the broken skies hat severe weather was imminent. Low and behold, SPC decided to post two severe thunderstorm watches that intersected in our exact location. VUSIT scrambled to get gas and lunch and headed back east on I-80 to intercept the developing squall line. Suddenly, several severe thunderstorm warnings came ut as we headed to the SE of Moline, IL. We were slapped in the face by winds around 60 to 70mph and blinding rain as the storms raced to the NE at 50 knots. The line of cells were "flying" because the cool, dry air sank and lasted eastward. Our team fell behind the advancing line and we bolted after the storms.

As we raced after the bowing squall line, several counties went under severe thunderstorm warnings. We saw several tree branches littered in the road, a few telephone poles tipped over, and even a semi-truck tipped over on I-80. Eventually, we caught up with the storms in east-central Illinois, and "punched" through the blinding rain and pea-sized hail. One interesting trait
with these gusty storms, was that there was no lightning. This was because these were low-topped convective storms, and the electrical charges couldn't separate in the cloud.

The day ended as we positioned ourselves in front of the angry storm and decided to ride out it's fury. We got off of I-80 and found ourselves in Matteson, IL (Will Co.) about an hour before sunset. VUSIT members jumped out of their cars to see and film black roll clouds and winds of about 50 to 60mph. Then a white wall of rain blasted through the field in front of us. As it overtook us, we ran into our cars and rode out the brunt of the storm.

All in all, it was a satisfying day. We made a near perfect forecast and positioned ourselves flawlessly Although we didn't see (or really expect) any ornadoes or large hail, we had a great "trial run" to begin the chase year and got to see some severe weather, while most people would have given up on the ay after looking at the morning's model runs.

Steve Beylon
VUSIT Director