JamesCaruso
Staff member
This is not your typical "forum-worthy" event, but considering the rarity of anything even remotely interesting in my home region of southeastern PA I thought I would share this little impromptu chasing adventure.
I work about 20 miles WNW of Philadelphia. We were in a SVR watch but I had only barely paid attention to the underlying setup. I was busy with work, and as I said nothing ever happens here anyway. I completely discounted the mention of the possibility of "one or two tornados." I had not even looked at SPC's tornado outlook, which was 5% for the area.
At about 2:15 EDT I had just returned from a lunch meeting. I checked radar and saw a TOR-warned cell about an hour north of me near Allentown PA. I felt a momentary urge to go after it but couldn't blow off the rest of the day at work and figured any supercell characteristics would be transient anyway. Plus the road network and traffic situation wasn't favorable there.
I happened to check radar again at about 3:30 and was astonished to see a TOR-warned and isolated cell immediately to the southwest of me!
A major freeway presented a path along the east side of the storm toward its southeast quadrant without having to go through the precip core. I knew I had to make a run at it to take a look. Only problem was I needed to be back in an hour for a 4:30 meeting, and rush hour traffic would begin as early as 4:00 and would be all the worse if there was any precipitation.
I headed south on the aforementioned highway, mostly tree-lined as everything is around here, but when the storm came into view near an exit ramp, I could hardly believe my eyes, for the first time ever in this area (and I have been taking chase vacations on the Plains for 18 years) I was actually seeing true (albeit low-topped and weak) supercell structure!!! Good updraft/downdraft separation, a rain foot, and wall cloud.
I snapped a few pictures on my iPhone and tried to find a place to pull off the road but it was tough to find a spot with good visibility. I was instantly reminded of the impracticalities of chasing locally - traffic, trees, soundproofing walls along the freeway, etc. But it was a fun little adventure and I made it back to the office in time for my meeting, saying goodbye to the storm as an apparent RFD eroded the shrinking updraft.
It turns out a tornado was confirmed with this storm - EF-1 with a path length of a mile; the storm was moving 20 mph so it would have been on the ground for about 3 minutes. But it occurred at about 2:10 EDT, well before I had noticed the storm on radar. It was 45 miles southwest of me at that point and I would never have made it anyway.
Of course the PhillyWX forum has a whole thread on this event with approximately 95 postings. I suspect mine may be the only one here on ST
I work about 20 miles WNW of Philadelphia. We were in a SVR watch but I had only barely paid attention to the underlying setup. I was busy with work, and as I said nothing ever happens here anyway. I completely discounted the mention of the possibility of "one or two tornados." I had not even looked at SPC's tornado outlook, which was 5% for the area.
At about 2:15 EDT I had just returned from a lunch meeting. I checked radar and saw a TOR-warned cell about an hour north of me near Allentown PA. I felt a momentary urge to go after it but couldn't blow off the rest of the day at work and figured any supercell characteristics would be transient anyway. Plus the road network and traffic situation wasn't favorable there.
I happened to check radar again at about 3:30 and was astonished to see a TOR-warned and isolated cell immediately to the southwest of me!
A major freeway presented a path along the east side of the storm toward its southeast quadrant without having to go through the precip core. I knew I had to make a run at it to take a look. Only problem was I needed to be back in an hour for a 4:30 meeting, and rush hour traffic would begin as early as 4:00 and would be all the worse if there was any precipitation.
I headed south on the aforementioned highway, mostly tree-lined as everything is around here, but when the storm came into view near an exit ramp, I could hardly believe my eyes, for the first time ever in this area (and I have been taking chase vacations on the Plains for 18 years) I was actually seeing true (albeit low-topped and weak) supercell structure!!! Good updraft/downdraft separation, a rain foot, and wall cloud.
I snapped a few pictures on my iPhone and tried to find a place to pull off the road but it was tough to find a spot with good visibility. I was instantly reminded of the impracticalities of chasing locally - traffic, trees, soundproofing walls along the freeway, etc. But it was a fun little adventure and I made it back to the office in time for my meeting, saying goodbye to the storm as an apparent RFD eroded the shrinking updraft.
It turns out a tornado was confirmed with this storm - EF-1 with a path length of a mile; the storm was moving 20 mph so it would have been on the ground for about 3 minutes. But it occurred at about 2:10 EDT, well before I had noticed the storm on radar. It was 45 miles southwest of me at that point and I would never have made it anyway.
Of course the PhillyWX forum has a whole thread on this event with approximately 95 postings. I suspect mine may be the only one here on ST
