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Last Updated on Friday, 22 April 2011 23:10 Written by Roger Hill

2011

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A prebirthday present for myself brought me to a quick trip into Illinois for what appeared to be a significant tornado event. It did not disappoint! By mid afternoon, I was heading towards the Bowling Green, MO area and ended up too late for the supercell that produced 2 good tornadoes there. Heading east, I decided to get ahead of a cluster of supercells and play the southern storm. As I was passing through Carlinville, a tornado warning was issued. Not long after heading east of of town, a funnel formed to my south. It disippated quickly only to be replaced by another one. It also disippated. As I stopped near the I-55, a strongly rotating mesocyclone formed, and quickly dropped a large tornado. This tornado did damage to homes, power lines, and trees and was rated EF3. Most of the shots here are video stills, as I didn't have a chance to take still photos. Click on the image for a larger picture.

Tail cloud points the way to the strongest area of rotation.	Tornado touches down 2 miles south of me on I-55.
Tornado strengthens.	Multivortex stage occurs.
Truncated cone is very strong.	Debris cloud gets more intense.
Tornado starts to weaken.	Visible funnel is gone, but debris cloud remains.