This was my most wild tornado chase yet. I intercepted this powerful tornado from the north shore of Sangchris Lake as it begun its destructive journey across central Illinois on August 6th, 2023.
I had been planning on chasing this day for nearly a week prior as there was a strong signal for severe weather on the forecast models. However, on the day of, I was less interested as observations showed fairly meager low level shear. I ended up heading out a bit late, and not long after I left, an arc of supercells initiated along the warm front in western IL.
I kept hopping to forming storms to the SE as the ones to the NW got washed out. They were all beautiful storms showing many forms, however they all struggled to produce tornadoes. I eventually dropped south to a supercell near Jacksonville, IL that was producing a spectacular lightning show.
Like the other cells, it struggled to do anything tornadic at first. However, it began undergoing a merger with several other cells, and that's when things got interesting. The RFD winds began SCREAMING towards a developing wall cloud, and at this point I realized it was now or never for tornadogenesis. I decided to risk it and take a northern view by heading towards the northern shore of Sangchris Lake. Sure enough, the storm dropped this monster tornado and I got to watch it tear off into the sunset until the blinding wind and rain blocked my view.
Afterwards, I kept following it from the north, which was a pretty brutal move as I got pummeled by wind and hail. I ended up just a few hundred meters from the tornado without even being able to see it! In hindsight, I can see the tornado there in my footage, but it was hard to be sure when it was happening in real life.
The NWS rated this tornado a long track EF2 with a path length of 23.6 miles. It was on the ground for nearly an hour. It touched down north of Pawnee, crossed Sangchris Lake to near Kincaid, and continued off to the ESE before eventually dissipating to the NE of Taylorville, IL.