June 30, 2014 DeKalb, IL Bow Echo/Whale's Mouth

Today had been kind of hyped up for severe weather here in northern Illinois with the main threat a few days ago leaning towards tornadoes/hail event.  However, as things often change this time of year in the Midwest, the threat soon began to shift towards a that of a damaging straight line wind event (seen here).  I decided to head home from the office a bit early and jog a southwest of town towards the wind farm.  I didn't want to stray too far from DeKalb in case I had to race back and beat the hail/wind.  After making it to my normal spot by the five sisters (the five wind turbines I always get in my shots), I noticed the humid nature of the atmosphere would make it really hard to see anything "good" unless it was right on top of me.  The shelf cloud left a lot to be desired, but behind it was one of the more dramatic whale's mouth formations I have seen in the Midwest.  I played around with it for a few more minutes by racing East, but eventually I knew I needed to head back to avoid the heavy rain and wind.  Overall, it was a nice little backyard storm where there was a ton of instability and moisture in the atmosphere but the shear was not great.  It is summer once again in DeKalb.