After a night in
Des Moines, the group decided to drive me home to DeKalb on Tuesday (I was originally scheduled for a Sunday flight out of Dallas-Fort Worth).
After we got settled in at my house, we decided to go to
Wisconsin – for a few in the group, this was their first excursion to the
Badger State.
The (removed b/c of crybaby culture) group, Sharon, and I first stopped in at
Beloit,
WI and then drove south to
Rockford to enjoy some
Chicago-style deep dish pizza at Giordano’s. After way too much deep dish, we all got some sleep back at my house in DeKalb.
The next day appeared a bit interesting as a strong vort max was rotating toward northern IL. Despite the cold surface temperatures, this type of environment often produces cold air type funnels, severe straight-line winds, and lots of small hail. So, after showing the group Northern Illinois University campus, we decided to head over to Chicago to take in some sites and chow down on a couple Chicago-style hot dogs before the storms fired in the later afternoon. After several “beefs” and hot dogs, we visited the top of the Hancock and “Cloud Gate” at Millennium Park. We left Chicago by 2 pm in order to intercept the developing convection out in northwest IL. Unfortunately, we hit a bit of traffic on the Eisenhower Expressway. We finally arrived back in DeKalb and, after a quick glance at the radar, it was clear that the storms were having a tough time “going severe” due to the lack of instability. The rest of the clan decided at that point to start the long trip toward Mississippi. This was the end of a very enjoyable trip … despite the lack of good storms during the nine days.
View from the Hancock Tower looking north along Lake Shore Drive.
A view of ourselves at Cloud Gate (aka "The Bean") in Millennium Park.
At this point, I’m planning to drive out to the High Plains on Sunday (Rapid City, again?) in order to follow the trough (and severe weather?) back toward Illinois. I could chase SD or NE on Sunday (if I can make it that far west in time), KS or thereabouts on Monday, and the KS/OK/TX region on Tuesday. I’ll update the blog if and when I decide to make the trip. Until then, I have some work to do …
2 comments:
Hey Walker,
sorry the weather was so good on your trip!!!
Hey Walker,
Wish it were better...our April wishcast hasn't come true yet for a wild last half of May. Hoping your next trip is better. At least we were on a supercell with a TOR last month...
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