1998 stats
Chases............: 6
Distance..........: 259 km
Time...............: 10.75 hours
June 26: Severe t-storm night chase
30 km, 3 hours
Next to August 24th this was the best chase of the year, this chase
has its own page. Full chase log with pictures is here.
More info in the June 26th entry on this
page.
<-click
on thumbnail for full size picture
The
lightning frequency was almost comparable to that of the June 26 storm.
I heard some low 'booming' thunder approaching around 11pm. After
checking the Buffalo station doppler I saw a very intense localized storm
moving from Toronto, over Lake Ontario, directly towards Niagara-on-the-Lake
(NOTL), then towards Buffalo. I grabbed the camera, camcorder, and
tripod in record time and drove out to NOTL. The sky was -really-
lighting up all over. CGs and CCs everywhere. You could really
see the low, thick, dark clouds hanging down towards the ground as the
city lights illuminated the bottom of them. Got off about 5 or 6
shots of the cloud formations. (all photos will be up here soon).
I drove down to Line 5 which is basically a 'paved' road going between
farm fields and stopped off to the side. I was going to set up the
tripod to take some photos but the lightning was just too intense.
When I stopped it was about 2-3 miles ahead of me, but within 5 minutes
it was surrounding me. 680AM was -really- picking up the lightning
static. Winds from my location were mild, as I was at the back end
of the storm (storm moved from northwest to southeast, I was on the northwest
end of it). There were lots of those CGs that follow the same strike
path to the ground... had one flash about 7 times through the same bolt
over ~2 seconds. After realizing the storm was surrounding me I decided
to drop back a bit, but then noticed I was completely disoriented...
I somehow made my way back through the dark, skinny backroads with lightning
blinding me from my rear-view, and eventually made it to a main road.
Phew.. was really sweating there for awhile. After this chase I can
honestly give advise to the inexperienced: do not chase at night! It's
easy to get caught up in the excitement of a storm, then realize after
looking around you, that the clouds are hanging down VERY low, and the
lightning is getting FAR to close. Furthermore, it's next to impossible
to track a storm and watch the dark unlit roads at the same time.
Reports
of a tornado touchdown in Sault St. Marie a half hour before we left.
My friend Jeff was watching the weather network and called me after he
heard the news. Large cells (one -massive- cell) had already formed
in my area, and the largest one was producing continuous low rumbling thunder.
Jeff picked me up around 7pm and we headed out towards the largest one.
Unfortunately it was farther off than we anticipated (we drove and drove
but never seemed to get any closer to it). We ended up in NOTL at
the water and watched another large cell develop out over the lake, but
it stayed out on the water and never moved inland.
Click
on image for full-size picture.
A large cell developed northeast of here (Niagara) and moved over the
lake and rapidly intensified. Spectactular anvil crawler lightning
appeared as the storm moved closer, then was followed by very frequent
CG and CC lightning. We followed this one out into Niagara-On-The-Lake
where the tail-end of the storm produced a tornado! I also
managed to get my video capture card working so click
here for my VIDEO CAPTURES!
Up until now I have always said our June 26th chase put all the others
to shame. THIS chase was by far the best for lightning, but was also
by far the scariest, and is the reason I now refuse to chase at night.
I heard thunder rumbling from inside my house and
went outside around 8pm. The sky had clouded over to the east, and
I could see flashes of thunder within the clouds... yet there were stars
overhead! I stepped inside to check the radar and apparently a cell
had formed from nowhere out towards Guelph, and was moving this way.
I grabbed my camcorder, camera, and tripod, and walked across the road
to the park down at the lake (Lake Ontario). The inner cloud lightning
became the most -amazing- anvil crawlers I've seen. They'd start
off as a single bolt and spread out into 20+ bolts, going COMPLETELY across
the sky to the west! These bolts must have been miles in length!
I called my chase partner Jeff (Funnel Freak - he's
always going crazy about the cloud formations above us when I'm trying
to capture CGs with my still camera. The guy is always going on about
how he doesn't like what the clouds are doing), and he wanted to go out
for this one. He showed up 10 mins later and I piled the camcorder,
tripod, and camera into his truck. We headed down to Municiple Beach
on the northern shores of the city on Lake Ontario... which offered a nice
clear open view of the lake, and you can park right near the water and
face the oncoming storm. By the time we were there the lightning
was -incredible-. CGs, CCs, inner cloud lightning, and still a few
crawlers. I figured since it was starting to rain it would be dead
down there - there were a dozen other cars parked watching the storm!
Anyways, when I was filming the storm from the lake at my house the lightning
was impressive yet there was minimal thunder. Now the thunder was
BOOMING. CGs and CCs were flashing non-stop.. some of them -very-
close (one flashed maybe a couple hundred years in front of us and hit
the water, and the guy's girlfriend in the car next to us started screaming
to take him home - got it on tape :) Anyhoo... the winds picked
up and it started raining hard... lightning intensified as it passed over
us and around us.
We decided to move back further to get in front
of the storm again, and drove into Niagara On The Lake (NOTL) where we
always seem to end up... I figured it was a great place to chase because
of the open landscape. Big mistake. We drove out into the farmers
fields on some semi-paved road that was far to thin to turn around on.
Followed it down about half a mile right into the middle (almost) of the
storm. Rain was coming down in sheets, lightning was very intense.
Reality kicked in and I realized we were in a bad spot. Jeff started
going on about the threatening cloud movements above us and we decided
to back up to the main road. After getting there we drove down Stewart
Rd. towards the QEW Skyway bridge. The rain was still intense since
we left the backroad, then all of a sudden.... I was filming dead ahead
(my camcorder needs something with light to focus on or it goes all blurry),
and Jeff yells and points to his right (I was sitting shotgun) "What the
F*CK is that!?" He's always freaking over some kind of cloud but
I looked anyways. A big CG lit up the background and a NICE sized
funnel was what seemed to be on the ground, only about a quarter mile from
us. (the storm was moving east, we were heading south-ish).
I said to Jeff "Holy sh*t, I think it's a tornado." Another
huge flash lit up the clouds... a big dark funnel was moving our way, wanting
to cross the road that we were on. I couldn't tell how far it was
from us because the lightning was irregular and coming from all different
places. I thought it was going to cross paths AHEAD of us so I told
Jeff to hit the breaks, turn around and head the other way. He panicked
and just FLOORED it. So here we are on some thin little water soaked
road going about 100km/hr with barely any visibility. THEN.. WOW!
We hit what was like a WALL of rain.. winds were -unbelieveable- ... the
rain was completely horizontal. I had no idea what was going on,
and he was still punching forward. Then hail came out of nowhere
and just started pelting the truck from MY side. The lightning was
the undescribable.... it was shooting down EVERYWHERE around us...
NON-STOP. It was almost like being inside a huge strobe light that
was inside a hail storm. I thought the window was going to give way
and we were at the end of the line. Hail just littered the road in
front of us, splattered against the windshield, the door of the truck,
my window.., mixed with VERY heavy rain and super strong continuous wind
and lightning. Jeff continued his path forward as I was freaking
out not having a CLUE what the best action to take would be. As far
as I knew it a tornado was right upon us - 5 seconds earlier we saw a dark
funnel that looked to be on the ground, now we were inside of room of intense
hail, rain, and lightning. The next thing I knew the hail slowed
to a stop (rather quickly ) the rain was still coming down and the winds
had decreased (still strong). We saw some lights ahead of us (finally!
there are *no* lights out there at all... not even street lights, it's
just complete blackness) and it was the Avondale Dairy Bar (where they
make all the ice-cream for Avondales). I couldn't even take another
look to my right outside the window.. if it was still there I just didn't
want to see it (was the weirdest feeling) We pulled in and to my
suprise it was still open (11pm at night on a Monday!). There were
even people in there! Seeing the lights and other people was a huge
relief, but all I could think of was running inside and asking them if
the damn place had a basement. After stepping out of the truck I
saw that the winds were considerably less, and a quick glance out into
the darkness I couldn't see anything (I had no idea if I was even looking
in the right spot, but not seeing anything (well, except brutal lightning)
was a relief. So, the people inside (mostly couples having ice-cream)
see me and Jeff stagger in, me with a camcorder in my hand, and Jeff with
the strangest look on him.
We decided to stay there for a minute and catch our senses. We
had no clue what had just happened in the last 2 minutes.
After calming down a bit we scoped out the landscape like a groundhog
coming out in the spring, and decided it was safe to get back into the
truck. Psycho Jeff wanted to keep following the storm, which was
still producing lightning all around us. I'd had enough. It
was just too close for me... I talked him into heading back to my
place.
My heart was still pounding and my hands were still
shaking a bit when we stepped in the door (probably around 11:45pm?
We completely lost track of time...). First thing we did was run
to the TV, hook up the camcorder and play it back. Sure enough with
one CG to the left, the right of the screen showed a definate area of dark,
light-impenetrable mass. Maybe it looked big because we were so close,
maybe we weren't as close as we thought and it actually was big.
But I'm COMPLETELY convinced I saw my first tornado tonight.
This is a chase log of WHAT NOT TO DO. It's
the last time I chase at night.. you can't see ANYTHING as far as theatening
cloud formations go. I was out there to get some nice lightning,
not thinking about the wind... Apparently this storm was a meso,
and a member of the StormChat mailing list has told me a TVS (Tornado Vortex
Signature) had appeared on doppler radar. (the radar image is HERE)
Of course, I learnt of this -after- I got back.... 'never again though..
'never again... (but damn those anvil crawlers are eerie!)
Here's the Environment Canada warning for the storm:
WUCN13 CWTO 250230
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING
ISSUED BY ENVIRONMENT CANADA. REGIONAL CENTRE TORONTO ONTARIO.
10.30 PM EDT MONDAY 24 AUGUST 1998.
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING ISSUED FOR..
REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF NIAGARA.
A PARTICULARLY INTENSE CELL NEAR GRIMSBY COULD PRODUCE SEVERE WEATHER
MAINLY IN THE FORM OF DAMAGING WINDS LARGE HAIL VERY HEAVY RAIN AND
DANGEROUS LIGHTNING. THERE IS ALSO THE RISK OF A FUNNEL CLOUD
OR A
TORNADO. THE CELL WILL MOVE SLOWLY EASTWARD ALONG THE SOUTHERN
SHORE
OF LAKE ONTARIO.
Update: apparently the tornado uprooted then threw large trees around, ripped roofs of several homes and buildings, and destroyed 2 cars.
MY BEEF: Radar showed a tornado signature, police had taken phone calls reporting the funnel, and the actual police staff had reported a tornado. A tornado warning was NEVER issued by Environment Canada, and the city sirens were never activated (are they only for wars?). Speaking of which, there were no warnings of ANY kind. You have to ask yourself... does E.C. really care about your safety? It seems Ontario is back in the old days where the only way to know of an oncoming severe weather event is to see it yourself. The States boasts an average warning time of 15 minutes, here, it's about 15 seconds...
PICTURES WILL BE POSTED HERE! WAITING
FOR FILM TO DEVELOPE AND FOR MY VIDEO CAPTURE CARD TO BE REPLACED!
I will post on the mailing lists when the pics are up.
If you see severe weather please tell the Weather Network so they can broadcast warnings: 800-463-9463
