COMPLETE MAY 25, 2006 STORM CHASE REPORT CAN BE FOUND AT THIS LINK!
I'm a day late with this report and I apologize, but seeing as I ended up chasing straight into my hometown, I had to visit with some very old friends. I took the evening off tonight to get caught up on things and share with you one of my most important chases to date..
I moved from Ohio to Colorado in April of 1998 and it was in the Mile High City where my storm chasing career officially kicked off back in 2000. I stated early on that one of my life-long chasing goals was to chase a system from Colorado to Ohio. The likelyhood of such a trek would be very hard considering one of two things would have to happen; the system I'm chasing needs to aim itself for the midwest and have nothing too close behind it which would send me back west before the system made it out here; or two, I would have to give up on the following system in order to follow the current one into the midwest.
I woke up early in the morning at our hotel in Bloomington, Illinois and immediately ran over to the nearest Wal-Greens to get a repair kit for my glasses which broke the night before. When I returned to the hotel, I moved to the lobby for free hot breakfast buffet and data. Low and behold, I saw the 10% tornado chances in Indiana and Ohio and flew out of my chair with a big "YES". I was chasing home.
Our initial target was Indianapolis, a bit further east than most chaser's target, but after yesterday's chase, we wanted to be ahead of storms so we could reposition for easily for any number of reasons. So with that plan in hand, we headed out of Iowa to the Indianapolis area where I treated Chris to my favorite pizza place on earth; Donato's. We stopped in Plainfield for that, west of town, and got ready for the action.
The watch went up as we ate, and after stuffing ourselves full of food, we headed down to I-70 where we met with David Diehl in Mooresville where we topped off and I replaced my crappy-ass Radio Shack speaker and did some minor rewiring. Towers were going up everywhere and fast, so we dropped south, then west towards Eminence and Cloverdale before continuing south on Hwy 231 towards Spencer to get in front of a tornado warned cell heading towards the Bloomington area.
When we arrived near town, the storm was about 15 miles west of us. Trees and hills made this a nearly impossible catch. Couple that with a faulty WX Worx system on my end and a GPS which was showing us driving through open country around the area. It wasn't a pretty sight. We were fortunate to find a long driveway with a semi-decent view to the west where we sat and waited as the tornado-warned cell moved in. Some lowerings were observed, but nothing rotating.
As the storm moved into the area, we jumped into town only to get turned around by loads of traffic. We then saw our best shot at this storm took us along a highway (IN-46) which cut through a State Forest. We elected to give up that storm and move north for the tail end of the northern line and more favorable terrain.
That meant Indianapolis at rush hour. Fortunately, the state capitol was more forgiving than the route we took to get there. We wanted to get east to at least I-65 because we knew we could travel faster AND avoid the lights which were killing us. We went north on IN-37 then cut over on IN-44 out of Martinsville, a road which was taken directly from that "walk in the woods" scene in Twister. We flew through Franklin to I-65 and into Indianapolis where we made a brief attempt to go west when I finally decided that our best hope was to get east of town.
We chased down the squall line to near the border where we pulled off to evaluate our situation near the IN/OH border. David decided to call it off and Chris was going to do the same after he crossed into Ohio. We said our goodbyes via the HAM and I continued east into the Buckeye state where I got slammed with traffic in Dayton. Fortunately I was stopped right at the I-675 exit east of town and to avoid sitting forever, crossed three lanes of packed freeway and flew downHwy 68 towards Xenia.
About this time, a tornado warning was issued for an embedded cell in the line for Greene County. I punched through the storm and barely got ahead of it near Jamestown and observed absolutely NO tornatic activity. The warning was allowed to expire as the storm weakened. I let it pass over me near the I-71 junction and continued to follow it into Washington Court House as the lightning behind it was spectacular. I then jumped on Hwy 22 and chased the storm straight into my hometown where I called off my chase.
My long time chasing dream became a reality as I crossed the city limits. An unreal adventure for my storm chasing career in which over the course of five days, I chased the same system from the Colorado Front Range all the way to not only my homestate, but my hometown! Something I know many chasers will never be able to do on the magnitude which I did. It was great to see old friends as I brought my porcupine ride and its toys back home. And in the midst of one of the worst chasing seasons on record, I can say I accomplished what could easily be the biggest, most important feat of my chasing career. I made it to my hometown, and as Dorthey form the 'Wizard of Oz' would say...
"There's no place like home..." And I made it back home on the wings of the wind...
COMPLETE MAY 25, 2006 STORM CHASE REPORT CAN BE FOUND AT THIS LINK!
COMPLETE MAY 25, 2006 STORM CHASE REPORT CAN BE FOUND AT THIS LINK!
