May 21, 2001
Storm Chase
Is
the year 2001 a chase odyssey or a bust odyssey? I guess that's a good
question when taking into account that in early April, southern Ontario
was quite active. Nocturnal severe storms produced golf ball-sized hail
in several areas, including Wellington county, on 7 April. Then things
have gotten quite. Southern Ontario would see the odd risk here and
there, however those storms moving in from Michigan would die out as
soon as they reach the border! I wonder if it has to do with customs...
:-) :-(
Well anyways, that
had largely to do with the omega blocking pattern that has been hanging
over southern Ontario for quite some time now. Finally, on 21 May, active
weather once again entered the region. At 2:34 pm, the first severe
thunderstorm watch was issued for Windsor-Essex-Chatham-Kent. OK, not
a bad start, since the risk of severe weather could expand to include
more areas. All afternoon I tracked the storms on WeatherTap. Then,
an hour later, at 3:24 pm, things where really starting to heat up.
A tornado watch was issued for Elgin, Sarnia-Lambton, London-Middlesex-Oxford,
and Huron-Perth! I haven't seen one of those since 1998! I returned
to WeatherTap's radar, and saw the storms over Michigan, however, there
was one catch... these storms were moving north! The tornado watch almost
made no sense to me because the storms were over MI and moving north.
However, there were some more storms on the way, coming from northern
Ohio. I gave my uncle, Dave Szozda a call to let him know of the situation
that was setting up. We discussed our possible chase, but we were unsure
of what was to happen. The storms over the Windsor area looked good,
but they were moving north as well, which meant that they would miss
Perth county, our chasing target. And the more north those storms headed,
the more they dissipated. Great, great, great. Using WeatherTap's radar,
I tracked the storms that were crossing Lake Erie from Ohio. The ones
near Cleveland looked pretty severe, but the test was to see if they
would hold together as they crossed the lake. Sure enough, they started
to lose their punch, like I had figured. Don't storms like Ontario anymore?!
Well, my "luck" had changed again, when the storms regained
their strength as they hit land. Dave Patrick's target was in the London-Windsor
area. Being the "desperate" chaser that I was, I wanted to
target Perth county, because it was closer to home and had a tornado
watch at the same time. I just wanted to chase! Plus, CAPES were the
highest in the counties nearest Lake Huron.
Dave Szozda, Rod
Sinclair and myself chatted about the situation via MSN Messenger. As
the storms continued to travel north into SW Ontario, things started
to take shape, or at least we thought. Every time the radar reloaded,
the storms seemed to have gained intensity as they continued their journey
north. Finally, Dave and I made up our decision. We were heading out.
I gathered my chase
gear, and the three of us, Dave, Rita and myself, left at 7:10 pm. Like
the usual, we took highway 85 and 86, going up by Elmira. I looked around
the sky... nothing but overcast. Oh wow, this is just wonderful. Another
overcast sky to make this chase difficult. Believe me, storms are hard
to find in these conditions. It was also raining lightly. We arrived
at Listowel at 7:45 pm, and pulled onto highway 23, heading SW. We were
now in the tornado watch area, but we could still see nothing that would
suggest a tornado was possible. By now, it made no sense to issue a
tornado watch. Just slightly after 8:00 pm, we pulled onto the side
of the road and waited around for a little while longer. The winds were
blowing from the ESE, but there were no signs of inflow. I got outside
of the van, and felt the strong cool wind blow over the open country.
OK, so where is this storm? Clouds were moving quickly due to the strong
winds, yet there were no signs of the storm. I could tell we were not
in the inflow region. And the tornado watch was still in effect, according
to the WeatherRadio. Then it started to rain again. No thunder, no lightning.
Nothing but cool wind and rain. This almost seemed more like an autumn
rain than a spring rain. Dave turned on the scanner again to listen
to the WeatherRadio at 8:30. Now, the tornado watch ended. Rita said,
"That is all we need to know." Enough said. I had a feeling
there wouldn't be much with these storms anyway, but at least it was
good to get out of the house and take our chances. We never even turned
on the cam once.
We turned back and
headed home. We got home at 9:15 pm. I checked my email and found out
the tornado watch had expired at around 7:30! I find it rather strange
that the WeatherRadio said it was in affect at 8. I check WeatherTap
once more, and saw that the storms had weakened and were moving east.
Figures! On 22 May, I got word from Dave Sills that there was an unconfirmed
report of a brief tornado near Harrow, in southern Essex county, at
6:30. Some trees were damaged. We were busted in Perth.
Total hours: 2 hours
5 minutes
Distance: 155 km
