4/5/2010 - DeKalb Late Evenin' Supercell

Spring has truly arrived -- another stormy night in DeKalb! After concluding my night course in Mesoscale Meteorology at about 9 pm, I ran home to grab my equipment for some evening lightning photo opportunities as severe convection was moving along and north of I-88 toward the DeKalb region. The storm was an elongated multicell initially, which took on supercellular characteristics as it screamed on past I-39 toward DeKalb-Sycamore. Unfortunately, a layer of low-level inflow stratus was obscuring my view for most of the event, but I was able to grab some images of a few bolts as the storm neared the Cortland, IL area (actually near the landfill for those who know the area). Below is a view of the storm as it started to wrap up and produce an elevated meso. Scattered reports of wind damage (and even some baseball size hail) were reported with this storm all along its path to Lake Michigan. Not bad for a nightcap! Finally, a nice writeup on the event is available at NWSFO LOT.

Time lapse of long exposure stills illustrating the supercell's shelf and notch (cf. with radar below).

Radar illustrating storm at approximate time of pics ... note the inflow notch.

Closer view of the storm (courtesy of LOT).