August 4, 2002
Storm Chase
Around
10 am, my sister Rita came to wake me up. Uncle Dave had called. A severe
thunderstorm watch had been issued at 9:51 am. All of southern Ontario
was under the watch. I got out of bed, still sleepy, and talked on the
phone for a bit longer while I loaded Weather Tap's radar. We were discussing
whether or not to chase. I told Dave that I had to have my shower right
now before it got too late. A line of thunderstorms were developing
over Lake Huron. This line was not very solid, but we were hoping it
would go severe once it hit land. I got off the phone, had my shower,
and checked out the RUC models. One word. Yuck! The models didn't show
any instability. The cap was almost at 3 degrees, and CAPE was very
very low. It didn't look good. I was thinking either storms would not
fire, or the RUC models were mucked up. Tom Stefanic had told me that
the RUC was kinda messed up, so he was using the ETA. I read the severe
thunderstorm watch and the special weather statement. Hmmm... did Environment
Canada mention potential significant severe weather?! Thunderstorms
were expected to form due to the hot and sticky air mass and daytime
surface heating.
We watched the thunderstorms
on radar, and then decided to chase at 11:00. No warnings had been issued
yet, but we figured storms would intensify later on. Dave arrived at
11:30, and we both loaded our chase mobile and hit the road 5 minutes
later. We took our usual route to get out to chase country - hwy 86,
north. I figured we should target Huron and Wellington counties. We
would be definately heading northwest on this chase because it looked
like the storms were heading towards that area. We then decided to head
to the area up by Arthur. Shortly after 12:00 pm, we stopped for gas
and a coffee just outside of Arthur. The place was crowded!
We decided to head
a little north of Arthur, but not too far. We just wanted to stick in
the area, but stay out of the city. We were on hwy 6. Finally at 12:30,
we saw something interesting... a shelf cloud with straight banding
running along the full length of the cloud! It was very smooth. We noted
a bright line of cloud underneath it. When it came closer, it turned
out there was more cloud kind of underneath and behind the shelf cloud.
I am not quite sure what that other cloud is called. Perhaps a dual
shelf cloud? We could feel the wind starting to pick up. It didn't look
like there was much rain in behind.
There was a bit of thunder and very
little visible lightning. As the shelf cloud went overhead and passed,
the wind really begun to pick up strength! Dust started to blow across
the roads and fields! We continued to video and snap pictures. After
a few minutes, the rain started to fall. We got in the van, and I called
CANWARN at 12:45. Judy at the Weather Office picked up the phone. I
gave her my name and location and told her about the wind. She asked
how strong I thought the wind was... our estimate was about 80 km/h.
She thanked me for my report and we hung up.
The rain started
to become heavier. Not much else was going on, so I suggested to Dave
that we try to get ahead of the shelf cloud once again. We turned around
and started heading south on hwy 6. As we got south of Arthur, we were
not sure what else to do. It looked like we wouldn't be able to catch
up with the shelf cloud again. I decided to call Ron asking for a nowcast
update, but unfortunately he was busy at the time. By that time, we
decided to head home and check radar and see if anything else would
fire. The sky was still overcast. We drove through Fergus and Elora
and headed home to Waterloo. We got back at 1:45. I loaded radar, and
sure enough, the line of storms had went poof. All in all, not a bad
chase considering it was practically the only action of the day, even
though there were no warnings!
Total hours: 2 hours
10 minutes
Distance: 113 km
