May 3 Weather

It's been a busy week hence the late entry but one I hope you find worthy nonetheless. After work on Monday, I noticed a blob of shallow convection towards the NW so I decided to have a look. Dismissing at first as simply being fair weather cumulus, I was amazed upon getting out into the country to see an unusual multi-cell entity that I cannot really describe other than being it's own "mini storm". What sold me on this being something more than just cloud was the developing arcus on the SW flank indicative of outflow. Could a cloud this small be capable of generating significant outflow resulting in the formation of an elevated arcus cloud? Apparently it can so I set up the cameras and the rest of the story can be seen in the video following the stills.




VIDEO LINK



In spite of knowing that more significant storms were forecast for later in the day, I went to sleep for having been awake the night before. Setting an alarm for early afternoon when I thought initiation would take place proved useless for I was awoken by the sound of thunder around 12:30PM. The first storm of the day was overhead and to my surprise, had a .50" hail marker coming at us. Moments later, the hail indicator verified and the *ping pang ping* sound snapped me to reality. Upon passage, Ava wanted to go out and pick some up so we did.


Seeing as there was more activity developing to the SW, I geared up and headed E on I-72. Next cell in line was another hailer to go over Decatur and this time more over the S portion on into Mt. Zion. Image below was simply an interesting base on developing convection to the NE as seen from the Argenta exit.


Near Oakley, second Decatur cell to my SW.




Pausing at US36, I allowed the storm to pass overhead an intentionally get "cored". It was here I observed 1.00" hail that can be appreciated in the montage video found below. After the passage, I followed the storm briefly before abandoning for another cell back building down towards Moweaqua.




Heading down into SW Moultrie county, I intercepted the SW flank of this next cell which had some interesting structure.




Allowing the above cell to drift off to the NE, yet another one formed in its place. A small wall cloud could be seen on a separate cell to the SW.


As this third and final cell of the line drifted NE, it too developed an impressive core yet none of the storms ever really met severe criteria. You are looking NE over the town of Sullivan.


Heading back, I paused for a few final opportunities. Much later, a well organized storm developed from near St. Louis and traversed S IL. I did not attempt to go after this storm but Dan Robinson along with several others did. His report can be found HERE.




VIDEO LINK