I realized at about noon this afternoon that I had probably messed up and should be in the car headed for western Illinois to play with the thunderstorms that developed near the warm front on the surface low. Things just started to get that look, but it was too late for me to do much about it.

A big congrats to a few friends of mine that did make the trip out, and were rewarded by that elusive warm front surprise tornado near Jacksonville, IL around 3 PM. I know Skip Talbot, Paul Hadfield, and Dan Robinson caught the fast moving rope, and am sure a couple others were nearby as well.

I was able to at least spend a chunk of the morning outdoors, mostly working on my pothole ravaged car. With the bouts of extreme cold and heavy precipitation this winter, the pothole situation is awful around Champaign-Urbana. I blew my second tire in a month coming home on Tuesday night.

The ground fog out in rural areas as warm air streamed in over the rapidly melting snow cover was pretty intense as well. And now that wind… gusting to 52 mph here already, it will be howling all night. I’ve realized how much I just like to “hear” the sky at night. Getting excited about sleeping to the loud howling wind tonight, I remembered how amazing laying in bed with the thunder early this morning was, and how I love sleeping to the sound of pouring rain. I guess I just need to be able to hear the weather while I rest.