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Monday, November 14, 2011 - 10:06PM CST

Severe weather event & chase in IL/KY - Monday, November 14

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

A pretty decent fall season severe weather event took place today, better than I had originally expected after looking at data last night. As I've mentioned before, a few good October-to-February opportunities in the Midwest are not unexpected, and this was one of them. I got a late start on the chase leaving New Baden, initially behind the line of storms that went up about 50 miles to my east. I pushed east on I-64, caught up to the heavy rain at Mount Vernon, then south on Highway 45 to finally get ahead of a potent cell at Norris City right at dusk. This storm put on quite a show of CGs, but I couldn't get out of the rain long enough to fire off any shots. I dropped further south across the Ohio River bridge at Shawneetown to position in front of the next big cell in the line passing over Paducah. I caught it just north of Marion, KY. The storms here were already outrunning the tiny instability axis and fading fast, though the lightning wasn't quite done.

click to enlarge

I positioned in front of the hail markers about a mile to the north of where I had stopped to shoot photos, but didn't see or hear any hail. The rain was heavy enough to create a white-out that I could only inch along through, with the air full of leaves picked up by the 30 to 40mph winds. I made it back home just before 10PM.

Nice images!
- Posted by Bill Hark

Thanks Bill!
- Posted by Dan R. from New Baden, IL

Good job on managing to get something from this event from down your way, I really like the second image, had not seen it till now.
- Posted by Paul

Thanks! Was really hoping for a CG to round out that last shot, but I'll take it.
- Posted by Dan R. from New Baden, IL