June 22, 2002
Storm Chase
I figured
today would be an active day. I was in bed when I heard a boom of thunder.
I jumped out of bed and got dressed in a hurry. It turns out a severe
thunderstorm watch was issued for southern Ontario at 10:51 am. A severe
thunderstorm warning was issued for Waterloo county at 2:20 pm. A line
of thunderstorms made its way through southern Ontario during the early
afternoon hours. I didn't bother chasing this line of thunderstorms
because the line was already here, and by the time we would have headed
out, the line would already be east of us.
I continued to monitor
the weather all day. Not much else was going on. Finally around 3:30,
I noticed an intense cell making its way towards the extreme SW part
of Ontario. I chatted with Dave Szozda on the Internet. I thought that
if we left now, we could catch up with the storm just in time. This
storm was intensifying and heading east. We decided to give this one
a shot.
Dave arrived and
we (Dave, my sister Rita and I) left at 4:30. Our target was the area
around Sarnia, and Chatham. We took the 401 down to London, then switched
onto the 402. We saw no storm. Perhaps we needed to head a little more
south. We were pretty much in line with Sarnia. So we decided to take
hwy 2 down to an area just north of Chatham. Well, time passed. No storm
to be seen. The sun continued to shine... and shine... and shine. At
around 10 after 6, we still had heard no warning and began to wonder
were the storm was. Well, this was not starting to look good. At 6:09,
we decided to call Ron Gravelle for a nowcast update. He said the storm
over Michigan had fell apart as soon as it hit the border. Doh! Turns
out we busted big time. 5 minutes later after hanging up with Ron, the
severe thunderstorm watch ended at 6:12. Figures.
We turned around
and started to head north. I noticed a cumulonimbus cloud in the distance,
but figured it was not worth going after. So we decided to grab a bite
to eat and visit Ipperwash beach for a bit. We were hoping to see a
nice sunset, but unfortunately the sun was setting behind the cloud.
So no sunset either. Dang it! Talk about a chaser's luck or what! We
got back from our bust at 10:30. Can we say "ouch" boys and
girls?
Thanks for the nowcast
update, Ron. It was very helpful :-)
Total hours: 6 hours
Distance: 515 km
