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May 23, 2004 Storm Chase

It has been an interesting few days. On May 22, Waterloo had a tornado warning issued in the early evening hours. A storm near Stratford produced two tornadoes, one in Gads Hill and the other in Mitchell. Both tornadoes were rated F2. Finally on May 23, a severe thunderstorm watch was issued at 10:47 am, and a tornado watch was issued at 12:27 pm for all of southwest Ontario. The SPC Day 1 Outlook highlight a moderate risk for southwest Ontario, with probs of 5% tornado, 35% damaging wind, and 25% large hail.

Bob Berry and I left my house in Waterloo at 2:45 pm, and planned to target an area near London. Nothing had developed yet, but we wanted to be well ahead of time so we can be there for the action expected later on. Shortly after 4:00, we both decided to stop in Ingersoll for a late lunch and to fill up with gas. I called my uncle, Dave Szozda, who was at home, for a nowcast update. No storms had formed on radar.

We continued our trek towards north of London on hwy 119. As we drove through the town of Thamesford, Bob noticed some tree damage, apparently from the Mitchell tornadic storm the day before. We drove back and saw more damage. We decided to check it out since we had time to kill. We talked to a couple young women who work at the Mack store on the corner of hwy 2 and hwy 119. They mentioned how heavy the rain was, and that there was a swirling motion. A fruit stand was completely damaged, and large trees and branches were twisted off. Shredded bark and other debris from the fruit stand was scattered about the property. The Mack store suffered damage to the roof. It appears a 2x4 or a bar of some kind penetrated the roof. We took notes and photos to be sent later to EC.

After our survey, we decided to continue with our chase and head north on hwy 119 and then started to head west on hwy 7. At this point, Uncle Dave gave us a call, and mentioned of a bunch of storms coming into southwest Ontario. He mentioned to head as far west as we can because when the storms would be here, there would be very little daylight to work with. Bob decided to give Stephan Mayne a call, but he was unavailable. Next, we called Tom Stefanac. He mentioned he was just outside of Strathroy, and said we should head a bit more south. We we just east of Park Hill when we decided to cut south on hwy 19 and 81 towards Strathroy. We then entered a strange temperature boundary. The temperature increased 5 degrees within 2 kilometers, going from 20 ºC to 25 ºC! We decided to try to get a hold of Tom on the CB radio. We were having trouble, and eventually lost him. Mark Robinson then called us and said he was coming into Strathroy on hwy 402, with Dave Patrick following closely behind. Bob and I waited for them to catch up, and we all eventually met up on hwy 402. We all decided to head east because storms started firing up near London. Bob mentioned to me that the one storm looked like it had a back-sheared anvil. We pulled off of the 402 at exit 69 on to road 9, and we pulled over on to the side. There was smoking burning in the field, and we could feel a bit of an outflow from the storm to our south. We decided to have a look at Dave's radar data feed and then decided to punch the storm. We continued on to road 9. By this time, it looked like the storm was splitting. There were two cores. We decided to punch the eastern cell from the north... something I do not recommend doing, especially on tornadic supercells. Luckily this cell was not producing any hail. The caravan of chasers encountered heavy rain and some cloud to ground lightning.

Later on, down road 9, between Melbourne and Middlemiss, we encountered two shelf clouds near 8:30. The first one was a lot smaller than the second one. We had some gusty winds, but it was not strong enough to cause any damage or kick up dust. At 8:25, we turned on the weather radio and a severe thunderstorm warning had been issued for the local area. We continued to head south east on road 9, towards hwy 401, constantly catching up with the shelf cloud. At 8:37, we thought we saw a possible wall cloud. I kept my eyes on it, but it eventually disintegrated. Dave Patrick and Mark Robinson were ahead of us. Dave mentioned something about a hook echo on the storm we were on. Several minutes later, Bob pointed out to me an inflow band to our left. There was only one inflow band. It was long and low. I've never seen anything like it before, except in pictures. We decided to cut south on the 401, when I saw it. A full condensation funnel out in a field to my right, just above some trees! I yelled "TORNADO!" The funnel was long, thin and slender, it was attached to the cloud base going way down past the tree line. It was on a bit of angle. It appared hallow and cylindrical. The cloud base was kind of flat and there was no scud near the funnel. It had good constrast against the light background. It looked like something out of a text book picture. Then the trees got in the way. DARN IT, I HATE TREES! Dave and Mark were way ahead of us at this point. Once the trees cleared, the funnel was gone. Talk about some excitement and frustration all in one! Mark Robinson reported a funnel cloud to EC.

Later on, we met up with Dan Wexler, another fellow chaser from Ontario. We decided to head back up because it was getting too dark. We encountered a spectacular lightning show on the way to Woodstock. We pulled on to the side of the highway to get some lightning shots. Later, we stopped in town at a service station for some coffee, and headed home. Bob and I arrived back at my place at 11:45. This was a great way to start off my chase season.

I would like to thank Bob Berry, a good friend of mine, for taking me out on my first chase of the year. I would also like to thank Uncle Dave for his support, and Dave Patrick for having the technology to pick out hook echos on radar :-)

Note: The funnel we saw could have been a brief weak tornado, but we cannot verify that. It seems that Dave Patrick and Mark Robinson did not see what Bob and I saw because they were too far ahead. It was a perfectly shaped funnel, going down past the tree line, but whether or not it actually made contact with the ground is unknown. Dave did mention there was a hook echo on radar.

Total hours: 9 hours

Distance: Approx. 420 km