After changing into more respectible chasing clothes (my Rodeo does not have air) we
rolled northwest to watch the atmospheric alkemy that was in central Iowa, heading
due east. A set of three squall lines were moving across Iowa, each one stronger from
east to west. I hoped the last one was moving fast enough that we could meet it before
dark. More on that later.

We made the Iowa/Illinois border in 2 hours, including a pit stop at my parents' home in
Milan to drop of folding chairs and convince my mom that what we were doing wasn't
really *that* dangerous. We picked up I280 just outside of Milan and as we neared the
I80 exchange near Walcott, Iowa, Keith started shouting "Look at that! Look at that!"

I asked "Where? Where?" Keith was in the backseat & I couldn't see where he was pointing.

A beautiful textbook shelf cloud was rolling in only a couple of miles west of the interstate.

I took the Walcott exit off of I280, crossed the interstate and pulled onto what I
*thought* was a less-travelled road.

I was wrong.

Luckily, the gravel shoulder was very wide and I was able to pull well off the road.
Keith and Joe watched from behind my Rodeo as I did some handheld video & set up the tripod.

A curious lady stopped in the middle of the road and asked "Are you guys storm chasers?"
To which I replied in a deadpan MiB voice, "No ma'am. We're Followers of Inclement Weather(tm)."

She then proceeded to start a game of 20 Questions as cars zoomed around her. I ended
up explaining to her that the cloud, itself wasn't dangerous, but the winds associated with
it could be strong. I didn't feel like going into too much detail as the cloud kept rolling
closer and I hadn't snapped any stills.

The front passed over us and heavier rains and winds came with it.

As the the front outflowed, the cloud line actually began to receed.
You can tell by comparing the previous two pictures that the cloud line sits higher.

Once it appeared the front had turned into heavy rain, we travelled west on 927
broke into clear skies, passed through Durant & filled up at Wilton for $1.64.
Keith remarked that he thought Iowa was to have much cheaper gas.

Little did we know that Peoria stations had raised their prices to $1.88 during the day!!

I tried to get a better bearing on where we were (I failed to notice the Walcott
turn) and took the first major northbound road we found, which turned out to be 38, and
get us back to I80. We turned on the interstate westbound and almost immediately, we
were greeted by the Iowa Welcome Center.

Woo-hoo!! Free state maps, boys!! (Note: I forgot to bring an Iowa map)

As I collected maps, Joe found that Iowa reststops have had DTN machines installed in
their rest areas. After waiting for the system to scroll through driving safety tips
and missing children screens, radar showed the second squall line just west of us.

We piled back into the SUV and took off for Iowa City, with Keith asking if there
would be a McDonalds we could stop at there. Too excited watching the skies, I
mumbled some sort of affirmative as we bolted down I80.

We didn't have to go far to reach the line. About 15 miles East of Iowa City, the
skies began to get *that* look and a low, but non-continuous, shelf cloud became visible.
In fact, as we passed under the shelf cloud, we were able to see that it was actually a
stack of shelf clouds, nestled together like plates in a dishwasher.

Once we got east of the shelf clouds, the wind picked up (almost dangerously, I may add)
and we could see the rain coming as a silver curtain across the fields of corn.

Putting my emergency flashers on, we weaved around the now crawling traffic at about
30 mph, while attempting not to rearend any people stopped in the middle of the interstate.
Joe suggested getting beneath an underpass, but after passing three already choked with
cars & minivans, we decided to push on.

We broke into sunlight soon after and drove through Iowa City. With the constant nagging
for food, we stopped at a McDonalds just as a stray shower passed by, drenching me while
I reajusted my antennas. With the speed of the last squall line, I figured we had plenty
of time to spare.

After eating my Quarter Pounder, I pulled out one of the newly aquired maps and we began to
plan our stategy. I remeber seeing the next line pushing east with a small leading line
moving northeast out of Missouri. Joe & I decide to move a bit south from where we were
while Keith polished off a second sandwich, asking "We'll be stopping for dinner, right?"

We headed south on 149 at 4:50pm, pulling over on a side dirt road to take a look around.
Fair weather Cu filled the sky, but it looked like some big stuff was building in the
southwest. We leasurely drove down to a town named North English and, while turning
around to stop at an ice cream place called The Malt Shop, Joe spotted a tree that
looked like it was struck by lightning fairly recently.

After ordering our ice cream and *finally* getting them (I kept asking the guys, "Did we
order ice cream? My long-term memory is shot!)", we climbed back into the Rodeo and
turned on WX-radio and listened to the barely audible report. A tornado watch had been
issued for counties north and west of us. We headed north on 149, back the way we came
and pulled back onto the dirt road we had stopped on earlier.

Spying around, the sky was still filled with move Cu and some lightning was visible to
our north and east. But to the west, barely visible, was a line of clouds going up like
a nuclear bomb.

The dirt road we were on seemed to be in good shape, so we headed west on it. After
twisting and turning a few times and waving at farmer on his quad, drinking Busch (the
light blue cans were strewn around the road) we came to a 4-way facing north.

"Which way, guys?" I asked. "North or west?"

Mumble, mumble....

"Uh... north it is"

The Troubled Ride Begins

We got about a quarter of a mile down the road over the crest of the first hill and it
felt as if my truck had suddenly lost power. The road had no gravel and
my truck sunk into the mud about 2 inches... and we were still slidding down the hill!!
I put my foot on the brake to stop wheel rotation so I could go into 4-wheel drive and
we promptly began to slid sideways towards the leftside ditch. I and began to tap the gas,
trying to keep us from going sideways. As we neared the bottom of the hill, I saw a
small stream was running across the road. Fearing deeper mud, I began to speed up so we
could make it thru the water and up the crest of the next hill.

"We were nice to that farmer, weren't we? Think he owns a tractor?" I said as we slid
and spun up the hill. Every bang as more mud hit the roof of my SUV (it was raining mud
from my back tires) just made me sweat more, but finally we made the top of the hill....

And it was more of the same, as far as we could see down the road!!

"Ah, SH*T!!" It took me 10 minutes to just get up this damn hill!

"Looks like I should turn around, huh?"

Mumble, mumble....

"Hang on," I said, using a farmer's field entrance to turn around. Joe had me put it
into first and we started back down the hill.

I'm sweating bullets & I can hear the guys trying to stiffle their giggles!

Everytime we would cross my previous tracks, we would be pull precariously close to
the ditch again, but I was able to make it to the bottom. There we discovered that my
previous trip's tracks had sort of blocked the stream's flow and a small pond had been
created in the deep tracks.

"This is it," I thought as I gunned the engine.

We went sideways again, but I let the truck dog-tracked up the hill, as some progress,
no matter how ugly we did it, was good progress. We then saw halfway up the hill, someone
had dumped crumbled brick on the edge of the road. Sure, it was close to the ditch, but
it might give us the *umph* to make it up the hill. The truck slowly slid towards it, then
my front wheels caught, causing my rearend to swing behind, almost putting us ass-end into
the ditch. Then the rear wheels caught and we were cruising back up the hill. Once we
reached the top and the gravel, the mud-caked wheels to break loose one more time, just to
make me almost pee my pants.

(Not Isuzu's next SUV ad)

Once we got back to I80 and a rest area, DTN showed the storms had barely made Des Moines!
We decided to call it a chase after a brief discussion. Had we gone straight south to
Missouri or west to Des Moines instead of waiting, we'd have been in it for a few hours
before dark. But, as it was, the storms were just reaching Iowa City after we had already
returned back home to Peoria, hours later.

Miles Traveled: 271
Lessons learned: Many
Dirty SUVs: 1 (again)

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All photos & text on these pages, copyright 2000, Daniel Dimitroff