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! :)