05/15/07 REPORTS: MI/IN/OH/IL/KY

[Jeremy Lemanski]

EDIT:After reviewing the pic and radar data, i know think the "Shelf Cloud" was likely a wall cloud that wasn't rotating fas. Being that i was about 1 mile north of the wall cloud, i was dead center in the biggest hail. Having only around 4 min. to setup, i failed to think properly and did a really stupid thing. I chalk this to a lesson learned and hopefully i won't do something like that again:


Well, i chased the supercell in southern huron county michigan this afternoon. I started off getting off to a late start, instead of heading west to saginaw bay to watch the storm coming in off the water, i waited and finally set up with the hope to heading just south of the cell and then fellow it as it moved ENE.

I stopped as i watched a shelf cloud form to my west. At this point, it was really difficult to get south anymore as the storm was nearly on top of me and seeing the shelf i figured there i might as well get some decent pics and some wind measurements for the NWS.

So, watching around 2 miles to the west i say dust on the leading edge of the precip. I have my hand out the window holding my handheld anemometer waiting for the wind when suddenly my chase parter/older brother yells HAIL! BIG HAIL! I look out the window to see a golf ball fall from the sky, followed by a baseball. OH *****. Get my hand inside the truck, and get ready to drive as the window takes the first damaging hit. Then another, and another.

We were in the hail for around 45 seconds before driving east of it, during which is smashed the front windshield, all bug deflectors, and took off the rear wiper. Plus lots of dents. We raced east ahead of the storm until we found an old machine shed that we parked under and watched a few more golf balls or slightly bigger fall, but by this time the storm was weakening.

The storm was right on the boundry. We had strong NE winds with temps in the low 60s as the storm hit us. I wonder if the cold front combined with the cold waters of lake huron undercut the storms as they were hitting us, causing the weakening trend and also preventing any wind or tornado reports due to the stable air coming in on the NE wind.

My one big @!*$* thing for the day was NOT taking my camcorder with me. I left it at home because it was packed away and i didn't have time to grab it. It would have been great to have some footage of the hail hitting the windows. Note to self: ALWAYS TAKE CAMCORDER EVEN ON LOCAL CHASES.

 

[rdale]

I'll have some pics tomorrow... Went down to Coldwater MI when the first cells formed. Nothing much. Drifted to Fremont IN to get a better signal for our webcam as I had to do a live hit at 5pm. Came back up towards Coldwater for the approaching TOR-warned line. Torrential rain but nothing bad.

Drifted into NW Branch Co, then sat near Athens (SW Calhoun) as the TOR warned line approached. 10 continuous minutes of 50mph sustained with higher gusts. As long as I've ever dealt with in this state... TOR popped for the Battle Creek area which was to my north, so followed it but in near-zero vis most of the time. Spotter reports of non-rotating funnels and the like but just tree damage for the most part.

Very surprised to see the evolution - last thing I expected was the squall line itself orienting west-east and moving norteast.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

%$$^%$

I did the whole "stand-by" thinking it was on record thing with my camera again today and missed recording the best dust storm I have seen. As I figured with all the dry weather we've had, and strong winds being the main thread dust was the main show.

Intercepted a line near Ogden, IL and was hit by a wall of dust. Was something straight out of west Texas. I couldn't see poles just across the road at points, and the trees next to me were being shredded by the high winds. After the dust cleared, my camera "auto-powered" off and I realized I had not recorded any of it.

Feeling the need to redeem myself I got on the interstate and got ahead of them to try and get the outflow to hit me again near Linden, IN near Lafeyette but it wasn't even close to as intense anymore. Stopped in LAF and had dinner with Mr. Ben Cotton and called it a day.

Was just what I expected, and was nice to be out again, just wish I would stop not documenting the high point of every single chase. It would be nice to bring something home with me for once.

 

[Danny Neal]

Well where to start today.....

Left my house on the southside of CHI about about 1230 pm. Made my way down to Iroqouis County just as WW 275 was issued. Decided to play the stuff coming out of the Bloomington IL area instead of heading down to "Chambana." And I think that was the right decision. At about 130 PM we took off west on CR7500E in Southern Kankakee county. Within 10 minutes we had visual of the very strong cell heading into the NW part of Kankakee County/Southern Will County. At about 150 pm we noticed the horizon turning from dark blue to brown, as 40 mph inflow winds started blowing dust from South to North and into an "area of interest" After 5 mins on the side of the road watching the dust blow into the storm we let the storm go as it looked like it would track into a very unfavorable chase area (aka: southern subs of Chicago) Just before the junction of County road 7500S and IL rt 115 we began hearing reports of funnel clouds in the Dwight area. It was decision time.....head north on 115 toward that storm or go south to US 24 and play a very strong cell coming out of the BMI area. We chose the south option.

Immediately after, we approached the town of Cabery, IL and saw a LARGE gustnado cross the highway about a mile ahead. At first look we thought we had a tornado, just at the size of it, but quickly overcame our senses and came to terms that it was a gustnado as the storm was quickly exibiting outflow dominance. We had a brief wind gust of maybe 35 mph and no hail on that storm.

It was about 215 PM and we had to decide whether to go north and play some linear action up by CHI or go down the road 15 more miles to US 24 and try to get hailed on by a couple severe warned storms coming northeast at us from Mc Lean County. We of course chose the southern option, and this is where we saw our storm of the day. From rt.115 south we travelled to the US 24 junction in Piper City and turned west toward Chatsworth. The next radar scan showed the POSH pop up 7 miles SW of Chatsworth so we were in primed position to intercept and perhaps get some good hail video. As we get to Chatsworth we turn south out of town and go about 4 miles and pull off into a farmers drive and sit there.

Things got interesting real fast. After about 2-3 mins of moderate rain and 20 mph winds, we noticed a large area of "black" moving across the field directly south and south east of us. Thinking.....hmmmm thats not good? Took a look at the radar and quickly saw our storm had merged with a stronger one from the south and the core(65 dbz) was making a bee-line for our position. We drove no more than 100 yards south and got SLAMMED. It was like going to the ocean and jumping head first into a tidal wave. A loud roaring sound was heard and the car started rocking from the West to East as 2 inch per hour rains buffeted the car. We quickly pulled over and turned the car from N-S to E-W and watched as trees to our north started losing branches. At this time intense CG's started hitting 10-15 seconds apart within 1000 yards all the way around. Have some excellent video of this sequence that I will be posting hopefully. Got an official gust of 67 mph 4 miles South of Chatsworth and some flooding on the road. After that we headed north to us 24 and heading east but the storm(now warned) would leave us in the dust and we called it a day.

Overall: Not a bad chase, definitely not a classic supercell with tornado, storm but it was a typical Squall line/outflow dominant round of Severe storms for IL. If I can figure out how to transfer video soon I will post a video.

 

[Kevin Myatt]

The Virginia Tech/North Carolina-Asheville et al. storm chase team intercepted a severe thunderstorm just southwest of Champaign, Ill. We were hit by 60 mph winds propelling a wall of dust and small debris. The wind was a warm blast that appeared associated with a noticeable lowering and followed along with the storm's NE movement, rather than a cool blast propelled outward. Dave Carroll and I believe this was likely a rear-flank downdraft, as the cell developed a meso on radar shortly after our intercept. Not surprisingly, the meso was short-lived in such a weak shear environment, but it provided an exciting storm experience for the 10 high school and college students in our group -- and again beat our expectations.

Video of wind gust outside Champaign (much better with sound turned up)

More on our 2-week chase trip

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Put up a short video of what I did record today. Got the wall of dust approaching me (none of the core of course), then me griping about not getting that, and then some gusty whatever crappy winds in Indiana.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NohyH7T95qg

 

[Jim Hunt]

I will offer a short report since I started the forecast thread. The late arrive of storms (rain) to Howard County forced me to stay very local since I had a (weather permitting) commitment at 7:00 PM. The SVR and TOR warned cells in IL went north of my IN location.

We had a quick disingrating squall line as the front passed which was pretty weak. It did bring a short downpour for a couple of minutes (washing out my commitment) in the 6 PM hour. However by that time everything was too far NE for me to chase.

Result: Nothing SVR seen again.

 

[cdcollura]

May 15, 2007 was a storm chase with an original target of northeastern Indiana. This chase started at about 2:30 by heading north on Interstate 75 out of Dayton, Ohio and then west on Interstate 70 to Richmond, Indiana to check data. There were two areas to watch. First, a cold front and intense prefrontal squall line was pushing in from the west and currently in western Indiana / eastern Illinois at the time. Second, a region of convergence over northern Indiana accompanied by a weakening cap, a moisture / instability axis, and a weak surface low SE of Chicago, IL. The target area was set at Fort Wayne, Indiana which could be reached via Highway 27 north out of Richmond.

Above - Gust Front (Squall Line / Bow)

Storms began developing along this region of convergence by about 4 PM EDT. Wind fields were SW from the surface to about 500 MB and increased from about 20 Knots to 40 Knots in that region. Winds veered a bit to 60-70 Knots at 300 MB and were WNW south of a jet maximum over the US Great Lakes. According to SPC, the 16:30z outlook called for a 2% tornado, 30% hail, and 30% damaging wind probability. By 20:00z, the outlook had the tornado probability upgraded to 5% for northern Indiana, southern Michigan, and NW Ohio. A mesoscale discussion (MCD 0809) went out for parts of northern Indiana, NW Ohio, and southern Michigan and severe thunderstorm watch #275 was issued shortly after valid until 10 PM EDT.

Arriving at Fort Wayne, the convergence line was encountered just north of town after dealing with rush-hour traffic at roughly 5:30 PM. Some multicell clusters of strong thunderstorms developed with this feature, but were high based and weakened. Meanwhile, a developing and very strong squall line containing damaging winds was pushing through Kosciusko County to the NW of Fort Wayne and Columbia City / Peru. This prompted a chase down Interstate 69 to the SW, then west on Highway 14 to get out of Allen County. In rural areas near Arcola and north of Dunfee, the gust front and intense squall line was encountered at about 6:15 PM EDT.

Above - Gustnado in Allen County, IN

Strong winds to 75 MPH and gustnadoes were observed in this area. The line was moving east at more than 40 MPH, and an attempt to back-track along Highway 30, then back NE and N on Interstate 69 failed to catch up with an intense cell in this line near Auburn.

Above - Interesting "clear-slot" on storm north of "bow" segment

The end of the chase in northern Indiana started by heading back east and southeast into Ohio on Highway 8 into Hicksville, then east on highway 18 to Defiance. Frequent lightning was observed on the backside of the line segments in this area at about 7:30 PM. The track continued to Napoleon on Highway 24, then east on Highway 6 to Interstate 75 for a fuel-stop, then south back into Dayton by 10:30 PM.

Above - Another large gustnado in Allen County, Indiana


Another round of severe thunderstorms developed in Ohio near Miami and Montgomery Counties north of Dayton at about 11 PM EDT, and MCD 815 was issued for this area (then severe thunderstorm watch 276 valid until 3 AM). Once severe cell in this storm cluster acquired rotation and was tornado-warned. This storm was followed into Springfield, OH along Interstate 70 where a large wall cloud was observed. This storm also produced hail and winds over 60 MPH. The chase officially ended at 11:45 PM EDT by heading back into Dayton, Ohio. The total mileage for this chase was about 450 miles total.


A FULL CHASE LOG for 5-15-2007 can be reviewed at the link below...


http://www.sky-chaser.com/mwcl2007.htm#MAY15


Short video (2:30 minutes long) can be viewed (Realmedia) at the link below...


http://sky-chaser.com/m8vid1.htm

 

[Doyle McIntosh]

I experienced pretty much the same thing that Andrew Pritchard experienced-- an indiana dust storm. I wasent sure what to expect when I could see cells forming north of my house, so i got into my car and drove a few counties north and ended up on the Warren/Benton Co. borders in Indiana. driving through Warren county I encountered a gust front of dust and but failed to get any of this on camera... AH!.... once I was out of the dust I could see it all off to my east and was at least able to snap one interesting shot of the dust still rising. I could see the tornado warned cells continuing to the north east, but lacking a computer in my car I didn't feel comfortable enough going further.