The year was going to go out with a bang.  The weather models brought a screaming jet over the Ohio river valley.  Speed shear over 80 knots and 1km SRH values over 500 in southern IL.  The models were not forecasting much instability. However, the strong dynamics of the system were forecast to overcome the lack of daytime heating. 

SPC went with a high risk for the 15th, the third high risk of the year, with a 25% hatched tornado from northern Arkansas to central Indiana.

You don't pass up a November high risk in your home state though.  Always low on cash, I borrowed a credit card from the folks and then made plans to rendezvous with Andrew and Scott to split the gas costs.  Dewpoints were only in the upper 40's that morning but a deepening surface low, forecasted at 988 mb over central IL at 0z, would rapidly advect moist air from the south.  We targeted Effingham since it would be close to the surface low, on the warm front, and has a good road network if we needed to adjust.

Waiting at Andrew's house in Urbana, Scott caught up with us.  PDS tornado watches were being issued until the the entire mid Mississippi/Ohio valley and into central IL was covered.  A continuous line of training supercells was moving across Kentucky into Southern Indiana.  We ignored this activity due to the terrain and flooding, expecting further development to the north.

We stopped in Effingham for data and met up with chasers Dave and Tzvika.  The second line was not organizing into nice tight supercells, nor were other lines developing.  Scott was working the radar and was not impressed with the situation.  We sat and waited for the line to approach as the first line had nearly continuous tornado warnings along its length in southern Indiana.  Dave and Tzvika got anxious and left, planning to intercept a severe warned cell on the northern end of the line.

As the heavy rain and winds came in, the weather radio sounded with a tornado warning.  We were sitting dead center in it according to the polygon display on GrLevel3.  Andrew and I got the video cameras ready but we couldn't see anything through the rain.

After the chase a tornado report came in from Newton, made by the local sheriff based on damage.  Highly skeptical we suspected it might just be straight line wind damage.  However, an NWS damage survey team came out and did indeed find that it was a tornado.  An F1 with a 10 mile path that passed just north of Newton.  Scott plotted our position, and Dave and Tzika's, against the path of the tornado.  We were within a mile of the circulation, Dave and Tzvika, much closer.  Its lucky they weren't even closer as the tornado overturned a truck on that highway and brought down power lines.

We didn't get our line of tornadic supercells, but we did manage to get within a mile of an invisible tornado.  There were several tornadoes, but November 15 was not a historic outbreak.  A large wedge tornado touched down near Paducah and many in Indiana.  Most chasers on the line in southern Indiana busted, however.  They were either unable to keep up with the storms or got caught in the flooding as Scott did.  We made the best of our situation however.  Scott plotted us a perfect intercept of a storm with a confirmed tornado, but one that was impossible to see because of the rain.  We made the best of what we had, and the high risk setup was an exciting end to the year.

Lessons Learned: 

• Some tornadoes are impossible to catch