June 10, 2005
Storm Chase
Today's
set up was kinda iffy on whether or not I would be going out on my first
chase of the year. There were several thunderstorm cells popping up
around the region from the afternoon to evening hours. The day before,
the set up was similar. Kitchener had a severe thunderstorm warning
due to a heavy precipitation storm. I was shopping at the time, and
I did not see much in structure from the storm, although it had some
nice lightning to it.
After work, I fired
up the computer and downloaded the latest radar and satellite feeds.
After a while of watching the cells fire and dissipate, a line of storms
could be seen from London to Hamilton. These cells were popping up along
a lake breeze coming off Lake Erie and could be seen on satellite. Dave
Szozda and I chatted online for a bit deciding what to do. So far, our
best bet seemed to be west of Hamilton, where we hoped lake breezes
would be converging.
We left my house
at 7:05. Just on our way out of Kitchener, we met up with a storm from
the backside. We saw quite a few single stroke CGs, and one ribbon lightning
while we were on hwy 401. We turned onto hwy 97 once we neared Hamilton.
Not good. We ended up in Freelton, and encountered a lot of rain....
and tons of trees. Yuck! It really poured. We went up a big hill that
looked similar to Bob's Road in Twister... guess what we saw once we
got to the top? More trees! Anyways, we ended up seeing flooded low
lying areas and small fields due to the heavy rain and more than enough
trees to do me a lifetime. We saw nothing in storm structure. All this
storm turned out to be was one heck of a rained-out HP.
Well by now, we
figured there would not be much else to see, so we started heading back
towards Waterloo at 8:20. On the way back home, we saw another storm
over the Fergus area, but figured it was very similar to the other cells.
We arrived at my house at 8:50. Afterwards, I attempted at some distant
lightning pics from my driveway of the Fergus cell. The chase was definately
not one of the best, but it felt good to get out for once.
Total Hours: 1 hour
45 minutes
Distance: Approx.
150 km
