Hits and Misses from Our March 10, 2026 Illinois Storm Chase (Part 3)

 

Darkness was now approaching in our day's chase, but we were now in good position to intercept the severe-warned storm to our west. A "hook echo"signature can be seen in this Radarscope image from 7:05 pm CDT, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. 

7:23 pm. While driving south on state highway 78 about 2 miles east of the village of Lafayette in Stark County, Illinois we could make out definite ground scatter nearby, even in twilight conditions. There was no obvious funnel condensation connected to it, so we could only guess. Tornado? Gustnado? RFD blast?

7:24 pm. Similar image. The vortex approaches the road. It wasn't until post-processing that these images revealed proof of cloud circulation above the ground scatter and a pronounced inflow tail cloud feeding into the storm at right--something not achievable with the naked eye.

7:24 pm. Similar image zoomed in. This feature was moving northeast (right-to-left in this image) from Lafayette toward Toulon, Illinois, where a NWS survey a day later confirmed a tornado (EF0) north of the town. 

7:25 pm radar image of our location with the storm's hook echo passing directly over us. 

7:29 pm. Back on the road again. Above, a probable tornado looking southeast from state highway 17, as seen from the town of Toulon in Stark County, Illinois. The image is blurred from motion and darkness. 

7:30 pm. Wheeling through Toulon. The barely discernible black shape of a tornado is seen behind the Stark County Courthouse on West Main Street. Nikon Z6ii camera.

 

7:32 pm. Our location directly in the notch of the tornado-warned storm.

7:34 pm. Inevitable Emergency Alert for tornado warning.

7:48 pm. Fully dark and sirens wailing. Probable tornado, captured with my iPhone 11. Image looks north from 600 N (East Williams Street), just east of Wyoming, Illinois. Rain and RFD was blasting this area.

7:50 pm. The chase is over. Our location is just west of the storm's hook echo, and just east of the town of Wyoming. A significant hail core can be seen to our northeast that we thankfully stayed away from. Now we drove back to Peru, Illinois (50 miles), where I transferred my gear back to my car for the 2 1/2 hour drive home. Heavy rain conditions until about Peoria, then uneventful after that. I arrived home just before midnight. We had made some poor decisions in this chase (storm chasing is not an exact science) as in the day's initial storm formation, but achieved success later in the day (though not really seeing it until post-processing of these images).