Distance
Travelled : 280 km
Hours on the road: 10.5Hours
-
Fellow chasers
Patrick Cool, and Tom Stefanac picked me up around 3:00pm in Waterloo.
We soon
met up with Mark Robinson nearby and headed off to Exeter, our target
area. We arrived around 4:30pm to find Dave Patrick patiently
waiting on
the outskirts of town. Dave had apparently been watching a line
of TCU's
going up and down to our west. He was worried that the area was
quickly
getting capped. Meanwhile Michigan was getting hammered with a
ton of
severe storms with lots of meso's and TVS present on radar... ARGH! The
models affirmed that the area was indeed under a cap of around 250
:(. Our
only real hope lied in central Michigan where a storm was heading due
east with
a hook like structure. The thing started splitting and of course when
it
reached Lake Huron it died. The consensus was then reached
that the
day was officially a BUST. We decided to head into town for some food
before
deciding what to do next, Dave went home. After attracting literally
half the
town's attention with his decked out chase vehicle Mark parted ways to
head off
home. As evening approached, the storms over in Michigan were
becoming less
organized and forming a giant squall line. We decided to wait around
and
intercept the line once it crossed Lake Huron. Following a conversation
with
Mark Rozitis, who had been up around Tiverton, we decided to meet up in
Goderich. We arrived in Goderich around 9:00pm and headed down to the
beach to
meet up with Mark. Since the line was racing across the lake at 110
km/hr there
wasn't much time to set up before it barrelled down on us. We
watched the
CC's and CG's in near darkness as a beautiful 3 layered shelf cloud
grew into 4 layers as the storm bowed towards us. When the gust
front
hit, dust kicked up all over the place and the wind gusts knocked down
tree
limbs. We would later figure out that the storm died basically right
after it
hit us. We followed the line and intercepted a few strong
embedded cells
around Mitchell and Stratford before I was finally dropped off at my
place in
Waterloo around 1:30am. All in all a good chase, having
intercepted much of the
strongest stuff that was left in the storm. This should do....
for now! Also a special thanks to Tom and Pat for allowing me to
come along today.
<>
Dave Patrick, Mark Robinson, Patrick Cool, Tom Stefanac
and myself look over some radar in Exeter as conditions look to bust
and leave us high and dry.
Watching
a right moving supercells in Michigan. Dave and Mark
decided it was not worth it to wait on the squall line
coming over from Michigan, but out of desperation the rest of us
decided to follow it. We headed for Goderich and met up with Mark
Rozitis. Mark Rozitis (left), Patrick (center) and Myself (right)
enjoy the light show.
As the gust front hit, dust blew
and wind gusts knocked down tree limbs.s.
On
the way back, we intercepted a small cluster of storm which had
survived in the Grandbend area and tracked NE quickly towards
Stratford. In the end, it alleviated our SDS, at least for the time
being.
