Spring Time in Paris

Saturday May 7 found me bouncing out the door on a surprise slight risk for EC IL. With a 5% tornado risk I have to once again give respect to Dan Robinson for the heads up to "keep your eyes peeled N". Shortly after his message a lone supercell developed near Bloomington IL that would drop SE and be the first significant storm of the day. E IL chases can be tough for often times the storms are moving away as you are trying to catch up. The road network and terrain as you get into EC IL is nice so making good time isn't always difficult as was the fortunate case for today. Instead of target the main cell that by the time I would intercept would have likely been spent, I paid attention to cells to it's W that had potential for growing into something more. This is exactly what happened for the old cell (SE of Danville) was done while new development (Sidell) went up on cue. the trip would take me to just outside of Paris IL in Edgar County hence the title :)



Main cell in back, newer development in the foreground with rain free base and slight RFD cut. I thought the tire tracks might make for an interesting composition.



Storms seemed "cold" and outflowish but near Longview this interaction made for ominous structure. Many others were on this storm but I never saw anyone.



Sticking with the cell to just outside of Newman and although tornado warned, it didn't look healthy. The amber light of late afternoon still made for a beautiful sight.







Letting it go at Paris, a new cell I had been watching from behind the previous had matured so I spent some time with it. This would be the storm of the day for me and although never warned, it had good motion on the leading edge as well as very gusty winds upon passage. An unusual thing would happen in that an inconclusive spin up/gustnado would develop just to my E from underneath an area of strong upper rotation. It was among several bizarre things witnessed this day for in the fields under developing updrafts I saw numerous spin up's as well as smooth, slender horseshoe funnels appearing literally out of thin air. I shot video on this last cell but have yet to put it together as I am having audio issues on my computer in that the sound card is going out.

Edit 05/10: Video added, click HERE.













Heading home, I stopped at the intersection of US 36 and CR 32 near Laplace for what I saw as an interesting nocturnal opportunity.