Just a minor note: I took all of these while DRIVING, so please excuse any crookedness.

A little further south down the interstate.

Now about half an hour or so into our trip, we run into a dry line boundary. It was pretty neat because once we were underneath
of it you could look all the way down the cumulus line and it was perfectly straight. One side had many building cumulus and
the other side was perfectly sunny. I wish I would have snapped a picture of this now. I did get some of the cumulus, however.

This is the picture on the home page.

Ok, so now I have had my photography itched scratched for a while, we continued further south. About an hour and a half before,
I had an energy drink and a water, so the other type of nature was calling me as well. After a short detour at Casey's in some forgotten
town, we hopped back on the interstate which was a few miles away. I only tell this story because it is important later on. See, we didn't want
to waste ANY time considering the days were already getting shorter and we didn't want to miss anything.

After a few nowcasts from my dad, brother Josh, and Joel's dad, we neared the town of Pekin. This is when we saw our first cell.
There was one vid cap I wanted to enter in here, but I haven't done so yet. I'll have to come back later and add it in. It seemed like it
took FOREVER to get through Pekin's 30 mph speed zone. We were chomping at the bit because this storm had some great
structure and we were in need of an open field. So, after about 10-15 minutes of following some slow Pekinites, we finally bust through
the south side of town. Shortly after, we turn right at a sign saying "Delavan". After we turn, I thought it would be a good time
for a couple structure shots as my dad called back and talked to Joel with another nowcast. There were numerous CG strikes
very close to us as we neared the main event.

A small cumulus tower with the monsterous anvil looming overhead.

Shortly after we notice a pretty well developed cell with a nice inflow tail. We have vid caps that show the tail, but for some
stupid reason I didn't get a picture of it. The only one I got was the updraft tower:


So, now is when the real fun begins. Keep in mind, we had NOTHING to go by except an atlas and our eyes to the sky.
We continued south toward Delavan until we came up to a stop sign. We sat there for a bit, then decided to go east and turned
left. Now, the story I had told before about me stopping for a bathroom break was relevant to this because if we had been 10 minutes
ahead or behind, we would not have seen the tornado.

Joel happened to look off the wide open field to his right and noticed something interesting. He pointed it out, we stared at if for a little bit,
then went crazy. It was a TORNADO! It was still a LONG way away, but nevertheless we had done the impossible. Like it was meant to be,
there was a road that went back STRAIGHT west shortly after spotting it. I got on this road and booked. Joel tried taking a picture of it with his
Canon A620, but for some reason it jammed up. Wrong time for that to happen! I obviously could not get any pictures either considering I was doing
the driving. So, we race after it and Joel gets the video camera on it. We sound like a bunch of idiots in the background, but I really don't care.
This was our first tornado and we were pretty darn excited. Here are some video stills:

As soon as we passed the last treeline, sure enough it had lifted. We weren't very happy with that part of it, but nevertheless,
WE SAW OUR FIRST TORNADO.

About two or three minutes after it lifted, we pulled off on a gravel side road and finally got some stills.

There were a few more wall clouds that formed, but there was no visible rotation.

We continued  down the road in hopes of maybe seeing something else, but that never happened. We did see a
suspicious lowering well back to the north which we got on video, but it was so far away we could not confirm anything
on the ground.  I decided to grab a few more scenery pictures.

What a day! We were pretty anxious to get home about this time because we wanted to watch our video. There was another monster
cell near Springfield which we actually went after, but it was getting close to dark now. We punched a few hail-less cores and decided
to just turn around and head for home. Not too far after we turned around, we saw these skies that were very cool.

The "cumulus mountain" The clouds had a short break and this appeared through the opening.
The mountain still showing as the clouds swallow the opening again.
Joel checking out the sunset skies after our first tornado experience.
Sunset skies at the end of a great day.

So, even though no GOOD stills were taken of the actual tornado, it was still an experience we'll never forget.
Even if we see an F5 in the future, this chase will always be my favorite one of all.


The final outlook chart of the day:



Tornado probability charts:

First chart issued: