4/5/2010 - DeKalb Late Evenin' Supercell

Spring has truly arrived -- another stormy night in DeKalb! After concluding my night course in Mesoscale Meteorology at about 9 pm, I ran home to grab my equipment for some evening lightning photo opportunities as severe convection was moving along and north of I-88 toward the DeKalb region. The storm was an elongated multicell initially, which took on supercellular characteristics as it screamed on past I-39 toward DeKalb-Sycamore. Unfortunately, a layer of low-level inflow stratus was obscuring my view for most of the event, but I was able to grab some images of a few bolts as the storm neared the Cortland, IL area (actually near the landfill for those who know the area). Below is a view of the storm as it started to wrap up and produce an elevated meso. Scattered reports of wind damage (and even some baseball size hail) were reported with this storm all along its path to Lake Michigan. Not bad for a nightcap! Finally, a nice writeup on the event is available at NWSFO LOT.

Time lapse of long exposure stills illustrating the supercell's shelf and notch (cf. with radar below).

Radar illustrating storm at approximate time of pics ... note the inflow notch.

Closer view of the storm (courtesy of LOT).

4/4/2010 - Northwest Illinois Convection

During a nice afternoon walk with Sharon and Chase, I kept a watchful eye on developing thunderstorms to the southwest of DeKalb. I was happy Chase got to experience his first bolts of distant lightning and thunder during the walk -- though, I believe I was a lot more ecstatic about it than he was. Upon our return to the house, I quickly loaded up the car with my gear and took after some new storms developing to the west of the Quad Cities. I figured I could watch the current decaying storms in my rear-view mirror as I drove to the west on I-88, while keeping a radar eye on the stuff moving out of Iowa. By the time I arrived at the Rock Falls, IL exit on I-88, I was mesmerized by the mid-level cumuliform undulations and quickly stopped to acquire some time-lapse. Below are some pics and a time-lapse video as I sat and watched near the I-88/U.S. 30 interchange. The storm was severe warned, but waned by the time it made it to my location. The ride home provided for a nice car wash, which the Camry was in bad need of.

You can email me at my niu.edu address and request a higher resolution video for your viewing pleasure.