July 22, 2002
Storm Chase
A severe
thunderstorm watch was issued at 10:51 am for southern Ontario. It finally
seemed like the chase season was starting to pick up. The first round
of severe weather came in the early afternoon. However, my partner,
Dave Szozda, was at work, so there was no way I could get out. So I
just watched the storm from my front porch. I hoped that there would
be a second round of storms later on. The rain came down heavy. Later
on, Dave called. He asked if I knew anything about an F3 tornado in
Conestogo. I was like, what?! Something didn't seem right. Apparently
there was gossip going around at his work. We did have a lot of wind,
but it was more of an outflow/straight line type of wind. He mentioned
that they got hit pretty hard at work, with the heavy rain and high
wind. I pondered about this. Perhaps it was a microburst or straight
line winds. When my parents go home from work, my mom mentioned to me
that she thought she saw a wall cloud. Now, whether it was one is questionable.
But I smiled. My dad exclaimed to me "You missed an F3 tornado
in Conestogo!". I then went on to explain that there was a lot
of outflow/striaght line wind, and that there was no way a tornado could
have been rated that fast. A tornado of that strength would have triggered
some tornado warnings anyway.
Anyways, the weather
cleared up for the remainder of the afternoon. I continued to monitor
radar and satellite. I began tracking a developing line of thunderstorms
over Lake Huron. Shortly after dinner, we decided to chase. The line
of thunderstorms were a bit more inland from the lake, and seemed to
hold together. I noticed a cell that popped up ahead of the line just
to the north of Waterloo. Dave came over and we left at 6:55.
Our target was going
to be around Perth county. So we headed up our usual way, north on hwy
86 and cut west. That small cell that popped up ahead of the line was
actually looking interesting. It was a nice looking cell! At 7:00, we
started to video the small storm, which was just off to the west. As
we got closer, I noticed that it seemed to have nice structure to it.
I noticed a few inflow bands, a flanking line, and banding ahead of
a shelf cloud, with heavy rain in behind. We decided to hang around
this storm for a while. It almost appeared to show some supercell structure.
As we watched the storm, a few staccato CGs flashed ahead of the shelf
cloud. We let the shelf cloud overtake us, and then it started to rain.
We got back in the van. We started driving a little more west. The rain
got heavier. By this time, we figured that was pretty much it with this
storm, so we decided to catch the line of storms in Huron county. We
stayed on hwy 86 and headed northwest. When we were on the back of the
smaller storm, I noticed how crisp the anvil seemed to have got. I also
noticed a flanking line. For some reason, I almost didn't feel like
leaving that storm.
We went through
Listowel at 7:45, then noticed a dark sky to our west-northwest. It
didn't look like much at first. It seemed to lack structure in the clouds.
But as we encountered the storm, heavy rain and lightning started to
surround us. We noticed a bit of banding as well. Then our visibility
deteriorated. It got very dark out. The type of darkness that you would
see after the sun has just set. This started to bring me back memories
of our May 12, 2000 chase. We pulled over to wait it out.
Afer a few
minutes of getting our van "washed", it started to get brighter
out. The sun started to cast orange hues. We then noticed that the sun
was starting to peak through the rain and clouds. This was obviously
the end of the storm. At 8:12, we decided to turn around. We re-encountered
the heavy rain once again. We decided to let the heavy rain get ahead
of us a bit, so we pulled over. A few minutes later, I started noticing
that some CGs were purple looking! Perhaps they were really blue, and
the orangey sky made them appear purple. We then saw a rainbow. This
line of storms didn't seem to be that bad afterall. We then decided
to start heading home.
At 8:50, Dave decided
to attempt at taking pictures of the lightning with his digital camera.
It was tough. Some of the lightning was incloud and overhead. Then,
he took a picture and noticed a bright streak come off the van. That
almost looked like a leader! He then took more pictures. However, that
same bright streak kept showing up! We then finally realized that the
headlights from the cars passing by were relfecting in the side mirror.
Doh! Oh well, at least it's nice knowing that we were not almost hit
by lightning! :-)
On the way home,
we met up with another storm just north of Waterloo. We got back at
9:30. Not a bad chase! The only thing that confused me was that no warnings
for the storms we were on had been issued. Perhaps I should have called
CANWARN and told them about the heavy rain. Shucks. Severe or not severe,
we still had a good time.
Total hours: 2 hours
35 minutes
Distance: 131 km
