Pneumonia Front & A Shot In The Dark.

April 3rd 2012 Will likely be remembered for tornadoes that struck the Dallas, Tx area with images of semi trailers being lofted through the air like toys being thrown by a child. Watching it unfold while driving to our target along the I-80 corridor in Illinois.
The particular set up this day was one of my favorites, for early April temps were pushing into the upper 80s and dewpoints were rising into the 60s. There was an area of low pressure over Northern Illinois with a warm front stretched across the eastern part of the state and a trailing cold front, essentially giving us a warm sector triple point play.

The plan was to leave here around 2pm and arrive to the I-80 area around 3:30 just in time for storms to initiate. When we finally arrived to the target there was nothing but the clear blue skies as far as the eye could see, and not even a hint of any CU on visible satellite, a very concerning thing. We decided head a little further south and get into a little more open terrain. Wenona is where we ended up stopping for the waiting game, a highway side town that had nothing more than a gas station and a hotel with 0 guests. Around 4:30 a few small cells had begun to form to our south near Bloomington but were quickly forming into a weak line and not really a plausible distance to try and intercept. Shortly there after a small cumulus tower began to form to our southeast and had quickly organized on radar. The storm also quickly took "the shape" that jelly bean looking shape that so often you see do amazing things. Now the chase was on. Now anyone who chases knows as soon as the storm you want is there, the road networks seem to vanish, and trying to catch up to a storm moving at 5mph seems like an impossible task. Shortly before we caught up with the storm went severe warned for strong winds of 65+mph and large hail. Soon after this we finally got into a good position to view the storm and had high hopes as it looked to be a very healthy looking storm and had some great atmosphere out ahead of it to continue growing.

(C) Jason Schwartzlow

 

At this point we got into some heavy wind and pea size hail but couldn't get quite into the bigger hail core. Now the one factor that we never took into consideration was a Pneumonia front coming off of Lake Michigan headed right at us. Now if you are unaware of what that is, it is a small cold front that comes off the lake bringing in very cold air behind it. Which this particular one did and hit our storm, killing it in its tracks that quick and dropping the temps from 90F to 50F in 10 minutes. We started to make the 3 hour jaunt back home since it was getting dark and nothing was panning out when a tiny cell had formed just to out south along the cold front and just sat stationary. The storm was spitting out a few awesome lightning strikes every now and then so we decided to stop and see if we could get any shots, a decision we would not regret at all as we found ourselves staring at one of the most prolific CG barrages I have ever seen. After missing several bolts I finally was able to capture one that to this day still gets me fire up, causing me to jump up and down the country road like a little kid!

 

We stayed here for probably another hour or so just shooting lightning and having a blast watching the barrage of strikes around us. One of the better days I have had this year for it starting out as a small possibility.

 

My video basically documents some of the smaller hail we got into with this storm, but if not interested in that you can skip ahead and watch the awesome lightning time lapse that accompanied the storm. Thank you for reading :)

Gustnado/Dust Storm Fun!

May 15th 2012 Was one of those type days that make you question your sanity, even though a slight risk of severe storms was in place, the threat of much of anything other than windy conditions was minimal at best, but with some nice daytime heating and some pretty steep lapse rates ahead of an approaching cold front, a stronger downburst type event was possible. Also the fact that the risk was literally in our backyards made the decision to chase a whole lot easier.

We started the day around 3:30pm on the Green/Dane/Rock county line area as that seemed to be the area of highest instability according to meso analysis. A few high based storms did start to pop up shortly there after and quickly die kicking out some gusty winds of maybe 40mph, but some of the lightning was pretty vivid. After watching this happen several times, eventually 2 storms got going and held together for a bit longer than the previous others, the only problem was 1 storm was north and one was south and both had decent cores on them. We decided to take the storm to the north since it was not gonna run over any previous rain cooled air, and at the time that seemed like the best possible play.

(C) Jason Schwartzlow

 

We stuck with this storm, which was moving at a snails pace, for about 45 minutes watching it spit out brief pea size hail and lower end gusty winds. When we arrived with the storm to the interstate the storm that we were on had weakened quite a bit and the storm we had passed on to the south had actually grown quite considerably in size and had some pretty decent amounts of lightning with it now. We decided to abandon the storm we were on and fly south to near Janesville (My hometown) and see if we could get ahead of it before it came over the city. As we drove down the interstate the amount of lightning strikes around us was surprisingly large, but the one thing this storm was lacking despite a stronger DBZ core was any precip. Something at the time I found to be quite odd. As we arrived just north of town several of the cars in front of us began to brake rapidly, figuring there was an accident ahead at the time. When we got a little bit closer we got a glimpse of what exactly was causing the cars to stop and pull over.

 

A fairly large gustnado and trailing dust storm were crossing the interstate right in front of us, being right next to an off ramp we decided to get off of the exit and go get a closer look into this. As we crosssd the off interstate on the bridge we got a great view of the gustnado crossing the highway.

 

Now up until this moment I've never seen anything like this, so you can imagine my amazement at the time. We decided to race southeast more and get back ahead of the outflow from this storm and see if it would do the same thing again. When we finally did get back ahead of it the next few minutes really became a little bit intense, the only words I can remember Jason saying were "there is a huge rotation right behind us" With that sentence we quickly pulled over to a side road an I was able to open my door quick enough to see the rotation making a dead aim for us.

 

I was able to snap off 2 quick pictures right before it ran over us, the second one is zoomed on the right showing the branches, corn stalks and dust it was churning across the field at us. I got back in quick and had to roll my window up, something I didn't quite get all the way to in time (I'm still cleaning dirt/corn stalks out of my stuff) The feeling when the gustnado hit the car was rather eary, it almost felt like it grabbed the car and was shaking it from side to side, we estimated the winds in it to be around 60-70mph. After it had passed the thing just kept spinning away in the field next to us giving us a great view of it up close.

(C) Jason Schwatzlow

 

Soon after this the storm had weakened quite a bit and we decided to just let it go on its way, after the storm had fully passed we were treated to a pretty awesome looking sky with some mammatus and a neat rainbow.

 

All in all it turned into a decent day being able to experience that for the 1st time, just goes to show even outflow can be fun sometimes ;)

A short while after this another gustnado had done some damage to a house in southeastern Wisconsin and a news station (WISN in Milwaukee) did a story regarding gustnadoes and what causes them and used my video footage from that day in the story.

http://www.wisn.com/weather/Gustnado-formed-Monday-during-storms/-/9374846/14297114/-/o0qc31z/-/index.html

 

My full video can be seen here. Thank y'all for taking the time to read, hope you enjoyed it!

 

Expect the unexpected.....

Sunday 8-19-12 was by no means anything special when the day started, but with a weak cold front interacting with the lake breeze boundary and some decent lapse rates you always have the chance at something happening. Most models indicated a few showers/storms would pop up by mid afternoon so decision was made on Sunday morning to give it a go.
The Initial idea was to head east towards Kenosha county and mess around with any storms that would pop up. As we got closer and closer to Kenosha a few showers did pop up, showing some decent tower structure for a bit, and then would die. Now there was a small threat for waterspouts along the coastal waters so we did keep that in mind. One thing that caught our eye on radar was a stronger line of storms just offshore near Wind Point. We decided to make our way up that way and hopefully storms would hold together and possible see a waterspout. About 45 minutes had passed before we arrived and the storms had significantly weakened, much to our frustration.The storms did spit out a weak boundary that looked pretty cool coming down the lakeshore area.

After watching this for a little bit a steady rain had begun to fall and the only storms on radar at the time were well off to the northwest out of reach. What seemed like a day that had a tiny glimmer of hope, was now coming to a swift end. We decided to head for home slowly and see if any storms would pop on the way back. After about 15 minutes on our way home, a storm all of the sudden popped just north of where we just were. We made the call to head back to Wind Point and watch the storm come down the lake as before, this time the storm had a strong core and a decent amount of lightning with it, so the odds seemed pretty decent that it would hold together and pass just to our east over the lake.
Unfortunately what seemed to be a reoccurring theme this year, was that storm would quickly weaken and do a split around us. With frustration getting pretty high we once again decided to head back towards the west and see if the storms to the north would hold together or anything new would fire. We slowly made our way to the northwest to take the long way home and decided to stop at a local gas station and get something to drink. When I came out Jason stated that the storm that had just formed north of Milwaukee had went severe warned for what was some pretty hefty hail.


Radar image courtesy of Jayson Prentice

After contemplating a route and time to get to the storm, we decided to make a run north as we were only about 30 minutes from the storm. A decision we would soon not regret. The drive north seemed like it took forever, but the storm was well within reach. As we were driving up the lake shore near downtown Milwaukee the sky was growing very dark and ominous to the north and excitement was running pretty high! We passed a spot that overlooked the downtown Milwaukee skyline on the lake and briefly considered stopping and letting the storm come to us, but decided to keep going. When we arrived in pretty much downtown Milwaukee the storm had lost it's severe warning but still had a nice strong core on it.

With the storm pretty much to the north side of Milwaukee, we decided to spin back around and head to the spot overlooking the downtown area. When we made it to the spot, we had to park on the road, wall across a field and it came to a set of woods leading down to a beach....Only problem was, there is no paved path, just a muddy runoff trail that was already slippery from earlier rains. After making the highly dangerous (JK) trek down and almost falling several times, we came thru an opening to the beach to see the most unexpected, beautiful sight over the skyline.

We sat there for several minutes snapping pictures and being in just awe, when Jason got this awesome lightning shot over the city.

                                                                               (C) Jason Schwartzlow

After this the wind would soon pick up and the shelf would be past us, leaving us with a feeling of surprise and excitement for what we had just seen! The ride home was a fun one as we saw tons of towers and back lit cumulus popping up everywhere, and some awesome looking bases on storms near us. Just as we were about to get on the interstate towards home, we saw one of the most vibrant rainbows I have ever seen! We searched for a decent spot to get a few shots but none were to be found so we pulled to the side of the road (nearly hit a guardrail, but we won't discuss that) and saw this amazing display of nature.

                                                             (C) Jason Schwartzlow

After an afternoon of seeing some of the most beautiful displays put on by mother nature, she had one more trick up her sleeve for us on the way home, as we arrived near Whitewater, another storm had fired to the northwest right at sunset, giving the sky a fiery pink color with the shadowed sun and a lightning display to die for, simply one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen, unfortunately my camera battery had died so all I have to show for it is a screen grab from my video camera showing the color display and lightning.

On a day that seemed like it was a waste, taught us a valuable lesson...no matter how frustrating it gets and no matter how bad it seems, never give up and always expect the unexpected.
The rest of my shots of the shelf cloud can be seen here http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.2377227565585.65053.1697501006&type=1 Thank you for reading! :)