March 11 Storms

Thursday's weather potential did not play out as was expected so I didn't travel far. I did however take the opportunity to be outside as it was an incredibly beautiful day for early March. Ultimately, when things finally popped around 5PM, they did so further to the NE but at the same time, I found myself along the actual cold front which offered up it's own surprises. Without getting too far ahead, the afternoon began with just some cloud watching around Macon county.















Attempting to be creative, I ended up out at Rock Springs with the intent of pairing the wetlands against weak convection to the E.


First time I have seen a Bufflehead. Thanks to Bill Doms and Brian Emfinger for identifying this species.




Success!


The beginnings of the ever so slowly advancing cold front to the W.


While at the park, I noticed towers going up on the line so I headed down towards Elwin. This is looking NE early on at what would become a sizable cell near the Champaign area.


The cold front having moved across the state at a snails pace finally arrived albeit starved for lagging behind considerably. I immediately noticed several interesting features including lowerings with slight rotation so this became my focus.




The magic moment towards the NE, mature cell at distant left is over Champaign and I believe the same that Andrew Pritchard photographed.


Small rotating wall cloud to my SW complete with inflow band streaming in from left. Easy to discern on video which I have yet to work with.


Looking NW on a similar feature.






All in all, not a bad day considering how nice the temperatures were in spite of the Winter that up until now has been persistent in keeping us socked in with a chilly NW flow.