Monday,
April 13th, 1998, was the day of interest. I was on Spring Break since
the 10th and was going crazy in anticipation to get the chance to see
Mother Nature and her glory. My dad, my grandfather, and I all set out
down I 57 around 9 AM for Central IL. There was early morning
convection already going on in Central IL (as I would find out the more
I studied severe weather that this was a normal occurrence) and little
to no lightning with it. We darted down I 57 to US 24 and headed west
and hung out at the antique mall as my dad and grandpa both collected
antiques. All we had was map and weather radio and by 1 P.M. the alarm
was going off for a tornado watch. The counties of the watch contained
all the areas South and West of us. We hopped on I 39 and then South on
I 55 until we hit US 136. As we headed west, the sky started getting
dark out west. A severe thunderstorm warning went out for Fulton,
Schuyler, Cass, and Mason counties we were currently on the border of
Mason and Logan counties. As we passed through San Jose, IL, the sky
continued to grow darker and menacing. I would be lying to you if I
said I wasn't getting nervous. Lightning started spouting out on the
western horizon. At the time I had no idea I was looking at a huge gust
front stretching from N to S along the western horizon. All I DID know
was that the sky was dark and full of lightning. As we approached
Havana, the gust front over took us and I was treated to a wonderful
whales mouth just W of Havana. By this time I guess the storm was
gusting out as the gust front hit and there was no precipitation.
This
video was basically the excitement of our chase. Shelf cloud with
whales mouth and core behind it, then we got cored near Chandlersville,
IL, and finally played tried playing catch up to the storm.
Overall
it was a great experience. I learned a bit about structure, the
benefits and struggles of chasing for the first time, and the triumph
of intercepting a decent storm when you don't have the technology
readily available to you.
