May 2025 Storm Chasing Recap

Another nondescript setup produces a lightning barrage of rare intensity near home on Thursday morning. Models had not portrayed this setup favorably for anything worth chasing here, and after a long night at work, I was not planning on staying awake for it. Before going to bed, I checked radar to see echoes right outside much stronger than models had suggested earlier. So, I went out to take a look.

These were initially slow to produce lightning, but after sunrise, the flash rates ramped up rapidly. I moved east to Germantown to find myself in the middle of one of the more intense barrages of cloud-to-ground lightning I've experienced. It was enough that I moved locations to shoot under high-tension power lines to protect my car! It's rare that I feel the risk of a strike is that high to take that action. I captured a few nice 6,002 FPS high speed shots here. The dashcams also captured several close bolts. This Youtube edit has the best captures:

Storms were expected to develop on a "back door" cold front (one coming in from the northeast) this evening. However, the intensity and longevity of the morning rounds of storms (see the previous log entry) left us with very little instability for the evening round. The storms weakened as they arrived in the eastern St. Louis metro area, producing this nice "whale's mouth" formation on the outflow. I saw a couple of flashes of lightning, but not enough to try shooting.

The first in a multi-day Plains/Midwest severe weather sequence was this setup as a split-flow jet ejected across the central USA. The primary risk area for tornadoes was from northern Illinois into Wisconsin, but models portrayed a secondary risk all the way down into southern Illinois and Indiana along a quasi-dryline/cold front. As usual, I favored the home option, which in this case appeared to have similar potential as the primary area thanks to deeper moisture. Dewpoints were significantly "mixing out" in northern Illinois by mid-afternoon, tempering the tornado threat up there and making staying local appear even more reasonable.

As I awiated storm development at home during the afternoon, an outflow was generated from a messy complex of storms and rain way down in northern Arkansas/far southern Missouri. This cooler air surged north rapidly and was nearly at I-64 by 4PM. This would essentially trash our environment for tornadoes and severe storms in the St. Louis metro area and eastward. So, I turned my attention to areas farther north that were out of reach of the outflow and in more sunny skies.

I left home at 4PM with the intention to head to Springfield, then evaluate things from there. After passing Litchfield, convection was visible firing on the front to my west and northwest. By the time I reached Springfield, these were full-fledged thunderstorms. They however were initially struggling to organize into supercells, appearing to have more dominant updrafts on ther north/west sides as if they were "left movers". I stayed just ahead of this activity on I-72 eastbound. I stopped at Mechanicsburg to observe a dominant storm finally establishing an updraft in the right place, with a rear-flank downdraft beginning to surge eastward.

The RFD push became a huge precip-filled slug forming a classic hook. The north side of the surge where a tornado would form was not as organized, with weak surface inflow and a few disorganized wall clouds and lowerings taking shape from time to time. This view was at Illiopolis where a tornado was reported from a small area of dust and dirt getting kicked up on the RFD gust front:

A closer view of the dirt plume:

This was a gustnado at best, and I didn't really notice any rotation with it from my vantage point. I didn't have much time to watch here as the storm was now racing eastward, boosted by the surging RFD. I wasn't gaining much ground on the storm at 65mph, and the warning text indicated a 70mph northeastward motion! It certainly looked like it. I grabbed one more shot of the storm at Niantic before diving south out of its way (as radar showed there could be hail in the RFD winds):

The storm was tornado warned right as I left it, but radar didn't suggest a tornado had occurred during that time. While a broken line of storms with some supercell potential existed all the way down to I-70, none of these were taking off. I stopped to take a look at updraft bases at Oconee and Ramsey, but they were falling apart and no longer producing lightning. I called the chase at Vandalia and arrived home at 10pm.