frostfern

I think phone footage is okay when you're literally inside a tornado. I didn't get the DSLR out for my short hail chase either. Glad you and your partner are okay. When you're directly under a storm it's really hard to know what's coming or which direction you should go to get out of the way. I thought the hail core was passing to my east because the sky looked a little brighter to the west, but it was actually still west of me even though the sun was coming through a little. Absolutely nothing compared to what you went through, but I would have had some windshield damage too if I hadn't stopped under a gas station canopy in time. Absolutely nothing will protect a vehicle from a tornado though. Scary.

Same. The best storms that produce both a high flash rate and frequent CGs seem to happen with dewpoints in the 70s. You need a lot of CAPE and good forcing to get it going though.

I don’t always understand lightning. I didn’t see any with the hailer I chased, though I’m sure there was IC up in it that I couldn’t hear or see. The stuff that produced the loud cracks early this morning looked like garbage on radar when I looked. It was just a bunch of congealed micro-cells.

Disappointing here too. I did get a couple very loud bursts of CGs, around 5:00 am and then again around 7:30 am. Terrible timing though, I was in and out of sleep. The severe warned line later on was just heavy rain and occasional soft rumbles. I did get a flash flood IMBY. Backyard is literally a giant puddle.

Middleville.

Downdraft crapvection front. Real warm air got tackled on the 5 yard line and couldn’t get back up. Getting some flash flooding here. Entire lawn is a puddle. SE corner of the state has a chance. Maybe.

Garden variety popcorn cluster just woke me up. Holy crap was that loud. I need more sleep. Gonna be a rough day. Insomnia is awful.

The warm front is takings its sweet old time despite little convection and a screaming low level jet. Then GRR is talking about morning convection. I don’t know where thats supposed to come from. Looks like dry outflow moving across Wisconsin. Hopefully it slows down. Edit. Welp. Morning crapvection developing.

I thought it was drying up as it come in from the lake, as the rest of the MCS around it was drying up, but then it caught a second wind and blew up again. I'm happy I got a good spot under the canopy and the hail fell straight down rather than at an angle.

I chased that elevated supercell about 30 minutes south of my house and barely reached shelter before hail up to golf ball size hit. Nothing like sitting in the driving range! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjzXVitHSk8

There's mixing impinging from the west. The environment looks more moist over Illinois if the cells over NE Missouri can get there and organize. Still waiting for the northern cluster to congeal into something. Kind of a mess at present.

There number of lightning strikes is increasing.

Yea. That brief couplet wasn't the meso but birds or maybe a microburst or something. I'm not good at figuring out what brief high velocity spikes mean, but if it persists in the same spot more than one scan and shows up from more than one radar it might be something. There is broad rotation all the way up in this cell, but the updraft base is pretty high to spin anything up. The higher dews feeding it are all around 850 mb.

If I was to pick a location for the next few hours it would probably be around Keokuk Iowa / Hamilton Illinois, perhaps slightly north of there. There's a band of high helicity and moisture pooling there.

There's lots of rotation, but it's pretty broad in general. The occasional higher velocity values values seem noisy and inconsistent, like birds or something. These things have a history of bringing damaging winds down to the surface when the RFD surges though.

The area of cells in Missouri is now expanding northeast towards SE Iowa. These are all under 3500+ j/kg SB cape.

It's an 850mb based cell. Hard to get a tornado out of that so far north of the warm front, but downbursts can certainly penetrate down into a stable surface layer. Also big hail still possible.

I remember 2.25” hail in Allegan county after dark on 4-07-20.

The problem is you can’t totally discount hail north of the front. The lake isn’t going to do anything to suppress elevated convection. It will *probably* weaken for other reasons( stratiform precip diminishing the CAPE from above or more widespread but weaker cells due to competition ). Hard to say though. I can pass on the severe wind and hail, but I really want a good light show.

Definitely possible with the right setup. The main issue is the warm front position though. I think what mitigates things on this side of the state will be overnight convection slowing down the warm front rather than the lake. I think surface based cells or a line will probably move in from the SW ( not affected by the lake at all ) and affect the SE part of the state regardless. Have to see what happens tonight though with the elevated stuff.

Strong flow at 925 can mitigate negative effects over the lake. If there's enough surface backing there can be some enhancement. The southeastern side looks most favorable though. I get the feeling there will be broken initiation along the lake breeze, like right along 131, that then fills in and grows as it moves east.

I'm thinking it might end up more localized. The CAPE / shear combo is impressive, but if the warm sector is really that hot the greatest risk will be relegated to near the warm front. It's still a scary setup as the potential for an EF3 or EF4 happening somewhere is still significant. The southern zone over AR could be active again too.

So if I chase it's looking like Northern Illinois will be entirely after dark? I can get to Iowa after spending Monday night somewhere well south of Chicago, but it will be a long drive back to Michigan once it's over. Could be difficult driving in heavy rain too. I have obligations Wednesday. I will have to keep watching trends tomorrow morning. If the initiation is going to trend later in the evening and farther west than Eastern Iowa I might just forget it.

Its not quite as bad as Lake Michigan, but the Mississippi doesn’t have bridges everywhere. I also feel like you need the interstates to keep ahead of cells moving 50mph+. I don’t know if its the same everywhere but its definitely pothole season around here.

Rainfall over the next 10 days could be concerning with more than one strong system potentially tracking over the same area with multiple rounds of convection and stratiform precip as well. Even with snowpack long gone, pre-leaf-out rains will saturate the soil pretty quick. Flash flooding seems pretty much guaranteed some places.