July 15th, 2024 was without a doubt one of the longest severe weather/chase days of my life, especially considering the local nature.
Rewinding a bit, I'd just returned from a family vacation out in Colorado ~24 hours before all of this. My first day home, Sunday, July 14th a line of severe storms in northern Illinois with severe winds and embedded tornadoes was pushing toward us into the late overnight hours. I found myself still sitting at my desk at nearly 2 AM on the morning of July 15th with intense, possibly tornadic storms on our doorstep in Champaign-Urbana. Just a few hours earlier, I'd mentioned to my wife Sophie that I was becoming increasingly concerned about the derecho potential locally on Monday evening.
A few hours of sleep later and it's dawn on July 15th - hot, muggy, and concerning, is the vibe outside. Weather models are still showing an intense bow echo developing in Iowa during the afternoon, and then riding down a stationary front across northern and central Illinois in the evening hours with the potential for high-end wind damage and tornadoes embedded within the line.
Probably a combination of lack of sleep, exhaustion carryover from vacation, and the tenuous nature of a derecho forecast had me running pretty hot internally with anxiety. I spent the morning hours alerting folks across Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana to the potential for a derecho later in the day before switching into chase mode in the afternoon.
I had entertained a few different strategies for pursuing the expected derecho before heading out the door around 3 PM. The first two involved positioning myself where I thought the strongest winds might occur, either along Interstate 39 from Rochelle to Rockford or further east toward the western suburbs of Chicago near Highway 47. Ultimately, I ended up going for option 3, which involved hedging a little bit further west in hopes of a discrete supercell thunderstorm along the warm front out ahead of the bow echo. A bubbling cumulus field kept that optimism going until around 5:30 PM before the cu field began to vanish as the bow echo to my west intensified. The derecho would be the main event, it was time to position myself.
In the end, everything really worked out the way it needed to, but I really wish I hadn't bolted west from I-39 toward the Iowa border. I was a bit impatient and the early storms were moving slower than expected and that drew me west with the hopes of catching the storms with some daylight viewing conditions left.
Two main bowing segments emerged - one that went east into the Chicago metro, and another that pushed southeast into central Illinois. I found myself caught in between. The northern segment was already pushing north and east of me, I wouldn't be able to get back out ahead of it. The southern segment was also beginning to dive south and east away from me. Additionally, the northern segment had an outflow boundary trailing behind it that was starting to surge southeast.
I was overtaken by the southeast surging outflow boundary in Geneseo, IL - sirens were sounding, and trees began coming down alongside my vehicle as I pushed south through town. I eventually picked up Interstate 80 just southeast of Geneseo and began blasting eastward. I managed to get back ahead of the storms as I approached Interstate 39 in LaSalle-Peru and dropped south ahead of the southeastward surging bow.
Unfortunately for me, I was overtaken again north of Bloomington, right as things began to escalate back at home in Champaign-Urbana around 9:30 PM. This was when my disappointment in how I had executed the chase began to increase. Part of me was annoyed that I was not in the western Chicago suburbs where an outbreak of tornadoes was occuring with the northern segment, and the other part was annoyed that I didn't just stay home in Champaign-Urbana all day and wait for this intense southern portion of the derecho to blast into my backyard. Instead, I'd driven 3 hours away and had a mostly frustrating time getting into position. Derecho chasing is tough, and I'm not trying to make this into something that it wasn't, but I've got rather high expectations of myself being able to sneak into the right spot for some spinny fun or high-end winds, and instead spent essentially all of the evening just trying to get into one of those spots. I never really stopped to "enjoy" any of it, just kept driving. Ultimately for reasons to come, it was good that I was following the storms right back into Champaign-Urbana and not hanging out 2 hours away in the Chicago metro.
A Severe Thunderstorm Warning with destructive 80 MPH winds was issued for Champaign County around 9:30 PM, which buzzed everyones phones with a wireless emergency alert, and activated the outdoor warning sirens in Champaign-Urbana. My phone blew up with calls and texts asking what was going on - the storm was still an hour away but the alerts were scary and urgent. I began providing live coverage over the airwaves via Illinois Public Media News from 9:50 PM onward.
Coming down Interstate 74 from Bloomington to Champaign I noted numerous powerflashes on the horizon, and around 10 PM Sophie let me know that we had lost power at home. This was not good.
I don't care about losing power, personally. I'll tolerate the lack of a/c and electricity just fine. But when we've had several rounds of heavy rainfall, my basement sump pump will not tolerate the lack of electricity. I was going to be fighting water all night.
I walked into my dark house, checked in with the wife and dog, and then went down to the basement. Water was pouring into the sump pump well, but it hadn't overflowed yet. Sophie and I started taking buckets of water up to keep it from overflowing, and after a while Sophie finally caved and asked - "so what's the plan here?". It was coming on Midnight, we were both absolutely exhausted, and there was no end in sight. A tree was laying on the powerlines in our back alley and it was nighttime and still storming outside. I figured we're looking at an outage lasting well into the morning, at least.
We put our heads and social networks together and reached out for help, at 12 AM on a Monday night. Incredibly, I found someone who had a portable backup generator that I could borrow, and she found some help (along with my mom!) to take buckets of water up so that I could leave to pick up the generator (it was 20 minutes away). If I stopped bailing water to pick up the generator our basement would rapidly take on water, but with several extra sets of hands now taking buckets up I had a window.
I got the generator home around 1 AM, and after fighting with it (user error!) for 30 minutes or so it was eventually cranking, and the sump pump pit rapidly emptied.
I wanted to cry with relief, completely soaked in Midwestern 80-degree-dewpoint sweat, rain, and basement water, we could finally stop.
I wound down, took a shower, and climbed into bed. Laid in bed for about 30 minutes before the generator purring turned to putt-putting, which turned to silence. I was so close! "Oh no, no no no" I muttered getting back out of bed.
It's coming up on 3 AM now, I'm alone, the basement is taking on water again, and I can't get the generator to start back up. I've added gas, checked the oil, everything is as it should be, but it won't crank and turn on. Water is coming into the pit fast now - so I'm bouncing between taking buckets of water up, and then googling how to troubleshoot this generator. I'm standing there in my underwear, hot, tired, soaking wet again, fully aware that I can't just keep taking buckets of water upstairs indefinitely or I'm going to pass out. I can feel my heartbeat in my face.
In a final act of desperation I check all of the settings on the generator again, and realize the choke lever is flipped the wrong way - flipping it back and pulling the cord it fires right up. The water is again sucked out of my basement. I again want to cry. I am so tired and sore I can hardly think straight, let alone be out here carrying buckets of water or learning how to use someone elses generator.
I skipped the shower this time and just dried myself with a towel and went back to bed to lay down. The sun will be up soon! Laying in bed I'd get a surge of anxiety and adrenaline any time the generator motor sputtered even in the slightest way, often simply because the sump pump was running and drawing power from it.
The generator ran for a couple of hours which allowed me to rest from around 4 AM to 6 AM before I heard it starting to struggle again, likely because it was running out of gas. I emptied the gas can into it and then hopped in the car to run to the gas station. Daylight was first spilling into the neighborhood, and I was shocked at what I saw. The neighborhood had been hit much harder than I was aware. Many large trees and tree branches had smashed homes and vehicles on neighboring streets. Before I'd even pulled into the gas station, Sophie texted me to say that the power had come back on.
Suddenly, we were the lucky ones! I had one of the longest, most physically exhausting nights of my life, but now that we had electricity our issues were done. Many others in my neighborhood have much longer roads ahead for recovery.
Sophie and I toured the damage and chatted with neighbors and then took ourselves out for coffee. I came home and got a little work done before telling folks that I was taking the rest of the day off to reset. I think I probably napped from like 11 AM to 4 PM and then slept like a rock the following night.
I love chasing big windy storms, but damn, the destruction is tough to see, and it becomes an absolute nightmare when you've spent an exhausting 24 hours forecasting and dealing with the storms only to have no sleep, and lots of manual labor waiting at home because the storms have slammed your back yard.
The weather pattern is quiet in the Midwest for now. It certainly feels like we've moved past the peak of severe weather season, but late July into August may have a few stormy tricks up its sleeve.
Here is my entire day in video form, with my 55th Storm Observation VLOG: