Outrunning the Iowa Bow

Sunday April 27th was a day we had been eyeing for a few days as a possible chase day. The setup was classic for spring tie severe weather, a strong low and associated warm front moving north, as a strong dryline was moving east over all the warm, unstable air. The original plan was to head to Kansas and chase Saturday and pick up the chase on Sunday in Iowa/Missouri. After much debate the models just did not seem to show the CAP breaking much on Saturday in Kansas so waiting to see how Sunday would play out was next on the list. Models did show the warm front sneaking into southern Iowa Sunday so the decision was made to go for it.

 

 

With the models indicating early storms we decided to set sail around 6am with the target being Bethany Missouri. The one very large drawback was would early morning convection be enough to ruin the setup and force the warm front south and would storm mode be discrete supercells, a chance you sometimes have to take. As we made the 7 hour trek across Illinois and Iowa the temps north of the front were lingering in the 50s, we made it to Des Moines and started south and crossed the front where temps rose into the 70s and and dewpoints into the 60s. The only problem was morning convection was refiring and the chance for discrete supercells was dropping pretty fast.

Pretty soon a line had started to form and we soon knew this was our play of the day. As the line grew a few spuds began to pop up ahead of the main line and drop some big time lightning so we decided to try our luck at a few lightning pictures before the chase started.

 

After shooting lightning for awhile the line was starting to intensify so we decided to move a little east and let it get going a little more. As we got our 1st glimpse of the shelf  coming over the hill it looked pretty neat on the base but nothing spectacular other than that.

 

The storm itself was moving rather slowly so we decided to keep racing east and try to stay out ahead of it as long as we could. Several times we stopped and would see the shelf approaching us with not much improvement in structure so we would again continue east and see what happens. When we approached Monroe county, IA we found a spot with a great view and decided to go ahead and let it overtake us before continuing on our way, the shelf on it now was really nice looking and the underside of it was spectacular!

 

 

While sitting here in this spot after the shelf had overtaken us we decided to film the winds in it as it was now warned for winds of 70mph, we sat and watched as a few large limbs flew off trees and tore a few shingles off of nearby roofs. We then continued to move east and were overtaken by some of the strongest winds I can ever remember encountering, The winds were so intense at one point we lost all visibility and had to pull over and let it pass us up. After the most intense part of the line had passed we continued on our way and crossed the Mississippi river back into Illinois where we caught up to the storm one more time and got one last glimpse of the shelf over  a wind farm before dark.

 

All in all it was a fun day but not what we were hoping for when the day had started. Being able to keep up with a squall line that long was pretty awesome though. Below is the video of the shelf and intense wind as it crossed us in Monroe county Iowa. Thank you all for taking the time to read :)

 

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A Special Chase in an Unexpected Place 3-30-14

On this particular Sunday I was in California for the weekend visiting my brother who will soon be deploying. As a series of weather systems came in the Pacific Northwest, a threat for isolated severe weather was a possibility in the Sacramento valley area. The previous day a few tornado warned cells did pop up about 40 miles to the north of our location, one in which  produced an EF-0 tornado. While taking a peak at radar early Sunday afternoon, a cell to our west caught my eye as having a certain "shape" to it, a shape that you often see a storm take on when it its a mature/strong storm. After watching this storm on radar for a little bit my brother and I decided to give a local chase a go.

The route to get to the storm took us through Yuba City, now most of you know me know that I am from Wisconsin and would not wish California drivers on anyone, not to mention the over abundance of stop lights. As we finally made our way through town we gout our 1st decent view of the storm, quite a beautiful cell to my surprise.

After finally reaching the storm near Sutter, we got a view of the storm and Sutter Butte mountain range together, one of the most beautiful sights I could ever imagine.

We sat and watched the storm for awhile and just taking in the beauty of it when a wall cloud with some decent rotation did start to form along the rear flank of the storm.

After watching this for a little while and hoping it would produce a surprise California tornado, the storm was quickly halted by more stable air over the mountains. As the storm began to die it did leave a parting shot of beautiful lightning over the green fields.

Normally a chase like this would not be anything special, but it marked a few firsts for me. My 1st chase of 2014, my 1st California chase and most importantly my 1st chance to chase with my brother, that alone made it something very special to me and this will forever be one of my favorite chases.