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June 30, 2001 Storm Chase

Were we going to see a storm today? Only time would tell, as I continued to monitor the weather. Uncle Dave, Rita and myself boarded "The Storm Descender" and left the house at 7:30 pm. We took highway 86, north. A cold front was going to cut through the region this evening, and squall line thunderstorms were very likely. Off to the northwest, we could see the cirrus cloud deck, indicating that the storms were nearby. Storm cells were off to the north, and a severe thunderstorm watch was issued. Our target area for this chase was going to be Wellington and North Perth counties. As 7:40 rolled by, we noticed a gust front to the NW, embedded in the dark sky. Several minutes later, we pulled off to the side of the road to take pictures and video. At this point, there was really not much to video. I looked up at the sky, and the wind had started to gust. We got in the van and drove onto highway 12, heading toward the Arthur area hoping we would see more action. We then noticed that the roads were wet, indicating that rain had passed through this area. At 7:56, we pulled over once again to wait for the storm to arrive. Where was it? We heard the static from the lightning on the scanner, however we could not see any around. By this time, we figured the storm had pooped out. All that came of it were big rain drops. After waiting around a little big longer at 8:10, we decided to call it quits. By the time we got back home, we could see in-cloud lightning over Waterloo. Figures. We arrived back at 8:33 pm, and drove a total distance of 60 km.

Total hours: 1 hour 3 minutes

Distance: 60 km