Given a pre-frontal trough forecast east of the Blue Ridge I rolled out of my driveway just before 1500 today to head for Culpeper. The local short range models had indicated convection firing over the Piedmont around 1600, and I wasn't disappointed. The above radar depiction shows what I was seeing on radar when I picked the complex south of town to chase: it was larger and somewhat more organized than the northern cell near Warrenton, which looked to be fading. I thus motored southeast out of the Culpeper area down Rte 522, where I stopped on a west facing hillside and snapped this photo:
This was a rain free base between two cells which was exhibiting a lowering and some incipient inflow accompanied by a couple of explosive nearby CGs. I continued eastward to Rte 20 to stay ahead of the rain while keeping an eye on this part of the storm but never saw anything that I could identify as a wallcloud. Meanwhile I checked radar again and saw the northern storm had strengthened, so I continued east to (hopefully) intercept it near Fredericksburg. Alas, by the time I got there it had fallen apart as shown in the below radar depiction:
The infamous "toilet bowl" had struck again, with the line of storms dividing and avoiding the Fredericksburg area. I headed home with visions of a missed opportunity dancing in my head...I shoulda picked the northern storm, but a chaser can't always be right!
0 comments:
Post a Comment