05/06/04 NOW: Great Lakes

[Ben Pinette]

1" hail reported by Petersburg Fire Department at 11:05. Monroe County SKYWARN net is being hampered by an open carrier for 5 minutes now. Unbelievable. Repeater just timed out. Hmmmm.... that seems to be more common over the past 2 years. Not quite sure who the A** is.

 

[rdale]

I'm cyberchasing because I'm in the office - why aren't you down there ;>?

 

[Ben Pinette]

Well, with regards to my previous post, I didn't feel like chasing hail at night If I thought it had any tornadic potential, I wouldn't have thought twice. Tough call to make because it's only a 20 minute drive. If it could have been a more photogenic possibilty (read not 11pm), I would've headed out. Didn't really seem worth my time, as I'd rather 'armchair chase' from home on this one.

 

[Ben Pinette]

Nothing more than pea and dime sized reports out of the Monroe cell now. It'll be out over Lake Erie momentarily, and I'm off to bed. Looking forward to a better opportunity next time, whenever that is :evil:

 

[rdale]

Eta now brings the front farther north on Saturday - no need to even bother trying to forecast it's exact spot but hold out hopes for good storms from Sat til .........

 

[Ben Pinette]

Yes, I'll allow it to slide north as a warm front if it wants too

 

[rdale]

What's up with the storm in Jackson Co?!?!?! Looks like that is going to be a hailer across northern Washtenaw...

 

[Dan Robinson]

Just got back from a 'check swing' chase toward northern Ohio. The northern Indiana cells looked like excellent lightning photo ops overnight as they moved into northern Ohio, and I started the drive north on I-77. As I reached Ripley WV, 40 miles from home, WxWorx showed reflectivity values dropping off quick, and I decided to turn around rather than drive the rest of the 250 miles. Lightning still looks intense around Findlay, though I think that will die off soon. Much better activity along the shores of Lake Erie, but that's a little too far for me tonight.

I'm curious if this little MCS will lay down an outflow boundary and fire off storms around or south of I-70. At any rate, I'm saving my chase miles and energy for tomorrow which will be closer to home.......

 

[Dan Cook]

Newest MSD out for Nrn mentions possible storm development with large hail. Monitoring for possible WW.

 

[Joel Wright]

A new cell has fired just southeast of Dubuque in the northwest tip of IL. Cloud tops are cooling in IA as well.

With the LLJ strengthening, looks like it's about showtime.

 

[David Draun]

Originally posted by Joel Wright
Unfortunately it looks like all we'll see here is elevated nocturnal convection as the cap in this area is very strong.

Well, it has begun. Looks like an elevated supercell about to sock Freeport. Lightning dectection indicates lots of CG activity. :shock:

 

[David Draun]

Well, so much for that cell. Hope it's not over yet.

 

[Joel Wright]

No it's not over yet. In fact numerous small cells are beginning to pop all over the place. I look for these to become larger and organize into large clusters through the night. LLJ is still strengthening. It looks as though the 850mb front is the action zone. At the surface there is some moisture convergence as well near that front. Dewpoints jump from 41 at Waterloo to nearly 60 at Cedar Rapids.

 

[Joel Wright]

(I guess this isn't 5/6 but close enough lol)

Just got woke up by rain and hail (about .88in) blowing in my window. Now that's a nice wake up call! Actually I kind of been drifting in and out of sleep for an hour due to thunder, but was too lazy to get up to check thinking that it was pretty weak stuff. To my surprise 70mph winds were reported just west in Muscatine, while here at my place we had EAST winds gusting to about 40.

The storms have organized into small clusters and are moving rather rappidly to the southeast along with the 850mb front.

 

[David Draun]

Nice. Even the weaker echoes are producing some brilliant CG/crawler activity here by NIU, and toward the city.