Andrew Pritchard

I'm not sure how many more times I can say "man, what a day" in 2026. The whole year has become hyperbolic at this point when it comes to significant severe storms in the Midwest, and more specifically my home state of Illinois.

Another day, another highly uncertain severe thunderstorm forecast across portions of Illinois and Indiana. Social media has been screaming about a potential derecho with scary simulated radar graphics from high-resolution guidance, and while that does feel like one possible outcome, it ignores the fact that there is very little to no consistency or agreement within those models, either with other models or with their own selves and their most recent forecast.

I actually did venture out yesterday, spent most of my evening in the vicinity of some of the tornadoes that occurred overnight. I was in Streator, revisiting the tornado path from June 11th on the east side of town around 7 PM waiting on initiation of supercells in the area. As we got closer to sunset, I lost interest in the idea of chasing overnight storms.