June 8, 2003
Storm Chase
After
a month of waiting to chase again, the season finally started to pick
up in early June. On June 8, severe storms were finally expected in
our chase region. Environment Canada had put out a special weather statement
regarding the storms that were expected to reach severe limits. The
first severe thunderstorm watch had been issued for SW Ontario at 10:20
am. EC expected the cold front to bring a line of severe thunderstorms
from west to east in the afternoon hours. That early afternoon, I decided
to load radar and watch the line of thunderstorms move in from Michigan.
I was hoping they would not fall apart over the lake. I continued to
watch them for another hour or so, and finally gave Dave Szozda, my
uncle, a call to see if he felt like heading out. I was thinking of
heading southwest, because the storms seemed to be more intense down
there. I continually checked back at the SPC Mesoscale Analysis page
to see what the current indices were. Things seemed to be shaping up.
At 2:00 pm, Uncle
Dave came over and we headed out. Surface based CAPE was 2500 J/kg with
a Lifted Index of -7. We decided to target the London area. We took
hwy 7/8 towards Stratford and cut south on hwy 59. At 2:46, we encountered
some rain, and scud. There was no lightning or anything severe to be
seen. Where was this storm? Was this it? What happened to it? We drove
around a little bit more... things didn't look too good anymore. It
looks like the line of storms had quickly fizzled. Around 3 and 4 pm,
we decided to head back home and grab a bite to eat at Wendy's in Stratford.
We arrived back at my place at 5 pm. I loaded radar and sure enough
the line had fizzled... later on it intesified once again as it headed
east. It looks like the convective temp didn't quit reach the temperature
it was supposed to be at... and Lake Huron didn't seem to help either.
Ouch. At least we gave my uncle's new Rain X a test (we should call
that stuff Storm X instead).
Total hours: 3 hours
Distance: approx.
210 km
