June 14, 2005
Storm Chase
Today
proved to be a bit more exciting than several days ago. No more wimpy
cells! We were looking at, what I would consider, the first real active
day in southern Ontario so far this year. This year has been unbelieveably
quiet for storms making 2005 the most quiet in 27 years. After I got
home from work, I quickly turned on the computer to see what was cooking.
Severe thunderstorm watches were issued. Environment Canada mentioned
there was also the possibility of a tornado or two. I talked with Dave
Patrick online regarding the set up and we both figured the Arthur area
would be good to see some development. For the rest of the afternoon,
I continued to monitor the situation. A cold front was supposed to move
in during the evening hours. A few cells popped up ahead of the frontal
system. I then noticed a few cells popping up around the Exeter area.
They eventually became severe, so Dave Szozda and I knew what we had
to do. Head southwest, catch a cell or two ahead of the cold front,
and then meet up with the squall line, which was over Lake Huron and
maintaining strength.
Dave and I departed
at 6:00 and picked up Adam Bennett. We headed northwest of Waterloo
on hwy 85. We decided to watch a cell over Waterloo from the backside...
it seems the haze have limited photo opportunities. We did manage to
catch a nice full rainbow, though. I could feel a bit of inflow, and
then the winds shifted to become outflow, which was much cooler.
After
watching this storm for a bit, we decided to take off more west towards
Listowel after the large squall line. As we were just heading west,
Adam pointed out a developing wall cloud around 7:00. We stopped once
again to watch it, but it amounted to nothing. There was no rotation
to organize it. So? "Go west young man, go west". We saw a
really thick cirrus deck... could that be the anvil from the line? It
was really hard to tell. It almost looked like it had breaks in the
base. We saw a few more growing cumulonimbus clouds go up. We kept driving
and the cirrus deck seemed to get thicker and darker. This was the storm!
Just before we reached Listowel at 7:30, we saw the impending shelf
cloud.
Oh boy it was big!
It seemed to have several layers to it. We pulled onto a side gravel
road to watch it, hoping to grab some nice shots. Then it disappeared.
The torrential rain seemed to engulf it from our vantage point... we
were facing WNW, and the storm was moving NE, yet the line was moving
on an angle. Strange movement. So, the three of us decided to try attempting
at getting past Listowel, but realized it was not a great idea once
the really (!) heavy rain hit. We did not want to take chances on going
through Listowel through the 0 visibility rain (literally), with many
trees along the roads, so we turned around and positioned ourselves
along the side of a road to wait out the heavy rain.
I haven't seen
a real heavy rain like that in a long time... it kinda reminded me of
our HP supercell chase on May 12, 2000 near Mount Forest. We could see
the edges of the shelf cloud inside the heavy downpour. I was taking
video when Dave decided to pull a little prank on me, and roll down
the window... the cold rain came in sideways and began to drench me.
Gahh! (Remind me I still owe him one for that!). Aside from the rain,
there were quite a few nearby CGs, just striking the road ahead of us
by several feet. Thank goodness we were not targets!
Once the rain cleared,
we decided to race ahead of the squall line and position ourselves on
a side gravel road to take pictures and video of the really nice shelf
cloud. For a moment, the surroundings and the appearance of the storm
made me feel like I was chasing in the plains. The dark dangerous looking
storm was racing toward us. We snapped a few more photos and video.
The shelf cloud was an awesome sight to see.
Then I began to feel some
raindrops and knew we had to move ahead quickly some more before the
heavy rain hit. We followed the line back to Waterloo, dropped Adam
off at home and arrived at my house at 8:50. All in all, it was worth
the 125 km trip! One of the most memorable squall lines to date.
Total Hours: 2 hours
50 minutes
Distance: Approx.
125 km
