This was officially our 4th storm chase. It took place on April 27, 2001. Along on this chase was Junelle Snobeck, Jeremy Grams, Stephen Konarik, Aaron Todd, Penny Zabel, Kari Kozak, and myself. Our plan was to meet Penny Zabel who was on her way back from Omaha about half way between Ames and Omaha. We left Ames at 2:00 pm and headed west on interstate 80. We met Penny in Adair. I might mention when we started this chase it was 40 degrees and cloudy and we were hoping to see tornadoes. What were we thinking! Anyways, we did come close. We eventually weaved our way southwest until we came to Red Oak. About that time, the NWS issued a tornado warning for Fremont and Mills county in southwest Iowa. Since we were close we headed due west to catch those storms. Unfortunately we were just out of reach and we only catched the southern half of the storm. We got lots of rain and strong winds, but no hail fortunately. A tornado was actually spotted by other storm spotters just north of Thurman, IA. This was our close encounter. After this we headed northeast in hopes more storms would develop and move north, but due to the extreme cold, nothing happened and we had to call off the chase. We ended by eating at Pizza Hut in Atlantic, IA. While there, we did hear about two more tornado warnings for Madison and Union counties in central Iowa, but we were to far away at that point. We got back to Ames a little after 9 pm. It was an ok chase, but next time it better be warmer. We got some pictures, just not as good as before. Enjoy!