March 28, 1998
Storm Chase
At
ten to three, uncle Dave came over. We made our plans to go out chasing
at around three thirty. Before we went out, we sat at the dining room
table, listening to my weather radio for further updates. A tornado
watch had been issued. At a quarter after three, we decided to head
out to St. Jacobs on highway 86, going north. As we were on Northfield
drive, before we pulled onto 86, I noticed a clear patch north-west
of us. I thought that would help us see the thunderheads coming from
the west. As we arrived at St. Jacobs, the rain cleared. We continued
to head north towards Elmira. I looked out the window and I noticed
large mamma clouds. At this point the storm, that brought the rain,
looked interesting. I told uncle Dave that we should head west because
there was a long band of hard shaped CBs at the horizon. They looked
multicellular. We thought that was where all the action was. So, we
started to head towards Listowel, in a north-west direction. We pulled
off to the side of the road to view the surrounding storms. Rita, my
younger sister, and I got out of our ‘chase mobile’ and I
looked up to the mamma clouds above, and to my surprise, there was a
gray funnel cloud hanging down horizontally from the base. It had very
smooth edges and a pointy tip, but it did not touch down.
The storm
was clearing out as the other line was moving in. This storm was moving
fast at 80 km/h in a north-east direction. As the line came closer,
we could see breaks in the base. Yuck! This line, of what we once thought
was the storm, almost looked like fair weather clouds. Instead of chasing
a storm, we were leaving the storm! Ahhhhhhhh! The storm that brought
the rain with no lightning was the severe storm. So, we started to head
east to where the action was. We continued to chase the storm for about
15 minutes towards Guelph, but we realized that we were heading out
too far and that it was going to take forever to catch up to it, so
we eventually turned around. The line moved in, but there was not a
drop of rain, and the clouds looked like they were breaking apart. Looks
can be deceiving! Well, it looked like the activity was over, so we
headed back home. We took some video and photos of the squall line.
