So, this is the first official post of our storm chase trip. I just wanted to share what we have been up to out here. Let me first introduce you to our team.
Jason Berry - Trip Director and Driver
Katharine Kobylt - Lead Navigator
John Vittorio - Assistant Navigator
Jake Segall - Radar Specialist
Matthew Kovall - Wx Radio Correspondent
Faith Eherts - Social Media Manager
Ashley Ellis - Blogger (that's me!)
Travis Patterson - Chief Photographer
Mike Levine - Photographer
Devin Boyer - Equipment Specialist
Now that I have introduced everyone I can tell you about all the wonderful experiences we have enjoyed thus far. Yesterday the group traveled from Pennsylvania and met up in Indianapolis and enjoyed a laid back night. We actually drove through some storms on the way to Indy that caused us to pull to the side of the road. Visibility was so low! We arrived at the hotel in two separate cars at different times. Faith, Kat, Jake, and myself arrived first at approximately 5:30pm. We decided to find dinner and see a movie. Devin, Travis, John, Matt, and Mike arrived around 7:45 pm and then proceeded to explore downtown Indianapolis and stop for dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Today was a busy one. What is even more exciting is that we weren't expecting to get any chasing in, but we did! Our day started at 9:30 am in Indianapolis with a quick meeting to gather our thoughts on the direction of our day. We hit the road around 11 am and headed for St. Louis. The initial plan was to get into position for tomorrow's storms, but that changed right around the time we hit St. Louis when storms starting firing to our southwest around southwestern Missouri.
With the storms firing to our southwest we decided to go ahead and chase a few of the cells while we had the opportunity. We headed north toward Hannibal, Illinois and ended up pulling over in the small town of Hull, (population of 500) where we watched the developing storm head right for us. In Hull, we all got out of the van to spectate the oncoming storms. We took photos, videos, talked, and gawked over the lightning. It was an absolutely great experience.
Hull was one of those stereotypical midwest towns that you think of when you think of the midwestern states. Farm fields and farming equipment surrounded us and we pulled over in a tiny parking lot with a small abandoned garage in it. The view was great, with the exception of the buildings that blocked the structure of the storm that we were interested in.
After the storm died down, we headed back to find a hotel to stay in for the night. We drove back to Quincy, Illinois and as we were driving back we ran into some more storms with some pretty spectacular structure. I'm pretty sure we actually "core punched" one of the cells. The rain was so heavy we couldn't even see 10 feet in front of us. It's one of those experiences where you absolutely love it and hate it at the same time.
Once in Quincy we checked into our hotel and went for dinner at a place called the Riverside Smokehouse Grill. We all gathered around the table and talked about our storm experiences from the day and laughed a lot.
Currently, we are in the hotel and getting ready to settle into bed for some well needed rest. It's been a long and exciting day! Our plan is to meet in the lobby around 10:30 am to have a debriefing with everyone. There is another team from Penn State that will be joining us for tomorrow morning's meeting.
I'll update again as soon as I can. Goodnight everyone!
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