It is no news that the weather world is watching the evolution of Sandy with an eager eye. Almost every forecast model shows the system in an ex-tropical state bombing out into an incredible storm before slamming into the northeast coast. Some have gone as far as to bring the low down to 925mb, a [...]

Summary: Blue sky bust, in Illinois…only 2012.   Stats: Tornadoes: 0 Hail: .00″ Wind: <30mph Entire day off wasted: 1   Detailed account: I got the day off work due to storms that rolled through in the morning. It was thought these storms would wreck the atmosphere for future development as often is the case [...]

Summary: Got on severe storm in Iowa with cool structure but no severe weather, called chase and detoured for new outflow driven storms in Illinois with huge dust clouds along the gust front.       Stats: Tornadoes: 0 Hail: .50″ (dime) Wind: est 55-60mph outflow.   Detailed Account: Today seemed to have less potential [...]

Summary: Chased marginal setup again only encountering sub severe storms with sub severe hail and mediocre structure. Stats: Tornadoes: 0 Hail: .75″ (penny) Wind: < 40mph   Detailed Account: Not entirely sold on the setup, I bit on it only because it was a weekend and I was desperate to get something great out of [...]

Summary: Chased grungy setup, intercepting several severe warned storms noting nothing more than brief encounter with sub severe hail and winds. Stats: Tornadoes: 0 Hail: .88″ (Nickel) Wind: est 50mph thunderstorm gust.   Detailed Account: Saturday, October 13th was thought by many to be the big day in the 2-3 day setup. I was skeptical [...]

Summary: Gambled on high risk/high reward chase and was rewarded with a beautiful supercell that delivered tennis ball size hail and 2 weak tornadoes. Stats: Tornadoes: 2 Hail: 2.50″ (Tennis Ball) Wind: est 50mph core gust.   Detailed Account: If you have read my chase logs, it is no doubt that 2012 has been the [...]

It seems that during one of the worst droughts in decades, the only way the area around Chicago can get rain is by getting pounded with severe storms. Tuesday morning’s round of severe weather was no surprise to many. Impressive parameters for severe storms were noted  hours before they actually arrived. With the record heat [...]

Storms erupted to life once again the morning of Sunday, July 1st for the Chicagoland area thanks to a gravity wave caused by collapsing storms in Iowa colliding with a frontal boundary that has been wobbling across the area the past couple days. The image below shows how it all happened. Click for full size. [...]

Storms erupted to life over sections of the Chicago area on Thursday, June 28th 2012 producing widespread damaging hail up to, and probably over 2.00″ in diameter and frequent cloud to ground lightning. This all happened on a day where the official temperature at Midway reached 100 degrees, and in the early stages of a [...]

Summary: First chase to the state of North Dakota turns out how most chases in 2012 did. Under performing storms with mediocre structure and barely severe weather.         The Setup: A weak yet deepening surface low in Canada left a trailing cold front across the Dakotas. Favorable speed and directional shear in [...]