Monday Storm Chase!

Today I got a chance to chase some severe storms that struck areas north and east of Dundalk. On my way home from work, you could just feel in the air that we could be getting thunderstorms. At home, I setup the radar screens and started following the thunderstorm activity on the map. One storm originated from Windsor and headed towards Toronto, only to dissipate into showers. Another storm started over Orangeville and headed northeast towards Alliston. While that storm was forming, I noticed a band of storms that was currently crossing the south end of Lake Huron. These storms were heading north and twenty minutes later, ended up just west of Mt. Forest. I had a choice, I could chase the storm going towards Alliston, or I could chase the one just west of Mt. Forest. Both storms would take me miles apart from each other, so the decision would have to based on what storm I thought had most potential. I decided that I would stop for gas before I made this decision, and as far as I was concerned, there was no use of rushing into this. Having said that, the decision would have to be made within the next twenty minutes considering the storms would continue their northeast track with or without me. I purchased gas and checked the maps in my car again, only to see that the storm,(now located over Alliston) had lost considerable strength. The other storm, (now slightly north of Dundalk) had strengthened and become quite severe in nature. The decision was now easy for me to make. I was currently 45 minutes away from the Dundalk storm, so I started my car and hit the road with a little urgency, considering I now had to catch up with it.
I took County Road 124 in hopes that I could get east of this rapidly growing storm. My plan was to place myself in a strategic area where this storm would sweep over County Road 124 in the area I was parked. The picture above is me traveling down County Road 124, approaching the storm from the south. You can see the sky north of me begin to darken as I approach. Five minutes more of traveling, I pulled over to the side and took down my antennas. There was no point in creating lightning sticks by keeping my antennas on my car. I continued on towards my desired position and started to encounter heavy torrential rain. There were times that I could not even see the car in front of me. I eventually got out of the torrential rain and positioned myself in an area that would place me directly in front of the approaching storm.

My location was excellent because I got to see the leading edge of the storm before I experienced the inside of the storm. I sat in a church parking lot along County Road 124 and saw the area to the north where hail was falling. You could see the hail fall, and it reminded me of a white solid sheet reaching from the sky and touching the land. A little east of this moving hail was some various cloud formations which at times seemed to spin. At one point, I believed a funnel cloud was in the midst of forming, but I knew it could not be the case after it broke up a few minutes later. I stayed in that position for the next fifteen minutes before I continued on with my track. I had to get away from the rain, because it was limiting my visibility considerably. Southern Ontario storms consist of a lot of precipitation, compared to the dry storms in Michigan and further south of there. Now because of this, it makes it very hard to spot out certain cloud formations in the storm. If I stay ahead, behind, or on the side of the storm, then blinding rain will no longer be an issue.

The next two pictures are part of an interesting little encounter I had:


The first picture was of me just exiting Elmvale approaching the severe part of the storm again. A few moments later this road would lead me into a forest. During this time, it seemed as if the lightning was picking up again. Before I knew it, I saw a quick flash towards my left and heard an ear splitting sound of a tree being sliced in half. It was quite interesting considering I have never seen lightning strike so close, and with such powerful magnitude. I finally gave up chasing at Orr Lake sometime around 10pm and started my travel home, away from all the severe storms. While chasing this storm, Environment Canada issued severe thunderstorm warnings in all the areas I was in tonight. Even when I left to head home, they were still issuing warnings north of Elmvale, as the storm continued northeast. Overall it was a good storm chase tonight. I did not expect these thunderstorms to maintain their intensity as they continued north. I guess weather will continue to throw out little surprises here and there.