6/21/2010 - Rockford, IL Supercell Lightning

I had just been complaining to Sharon earlier Monday about how we never see isolated supercells north of I-80 in Illinois. Ha! Once again, Ma' Nature throws me a bone, all the while laughing and laughing. I kept an eye on eastern Iowa all day, but had work and baby obligations that prevented a trip westbound. Storms did develop across se IA, but were out of my evening range. Luckily, after the little one was down for the night, I took off for new development in far northwest IL. I intercepted a mature supercell as it entered the Rockford, IL region. Since it was now nearing twilight, I was not necessarily tornado or structure chasing, but did setup for lightning just north of Stillman Valley. The storm produced some nice bolts, a few which I captured. It strengthened a bit after a merger and even produced a nice wall and tail cloud, which looked very interesting for a moment on the southwest side of Rockford. Alas, it did not produce (thankfully since it was in a very populated region).

A couple of animated gifs illustrating structure are available here.

Storm maturing again just west of Rockford.

Wall cloud in southwest Rockford.