500th blog entry, and 26 June chase reprise

I just noticed on the blog dashboard that this is my 500th post; guess I should celebrate. So, here are several video captures from yesterday's chase. The bottom view is of the left-hand storm that came from the split over Orange county. At the right edge of the lowering is a feature that looks a lot like a funnel. I edited the video and sped it up several times and I still can't decide if it was actually rotating, so I can't be upset that I didn't identify it as a funnel in real life. The vidcaps of the CG strikes were from the northern storm complex that was barreling in our direction. The lightning from this complex was almost continuous as it passed overhead, and the hail core indicated on radar was pretty impressive. I still wish both storms had been available earlier in the day, but timing is everything!

Whine a little, enjoy a little

You know, Nature just isn't fair! I headed out this afternoon to chase a lone cell in Fauquier county that was severe-warned, but it died down pretty quickly after I intercepted it in southeastern Fauquier. I checked radar several times and saw no other storms anywhere near chaseable so I headed home, arriving sometime after 7:00. About 7:30 I noticed an anvil cloud to the west and checked radar again to find a cell exploding over Orange. I agonized over the decision, but I finally decided to stay put since I couldn't get into position before dark. Then, literally as I watched, this cell split in two, which is a good indication of severity. The left hand cell moved almost due east toward us, so I wound up going back out to a local spot to video and take pictures. The top 3 images are of that cell and one behind it.
As the sun set I noticed another storm to the north that was rumbling with almost continuous lightning, so I headed home (again) to find a complex of storms crashing southward toward us. Given the forecast these were probably associated with the cold front due through here this evening. This radar depiction shows the complex:
It had continuous lightning and was hail indicated in several places, altho' up to now I haven't seen or heard any hail. But, there is more storminess coming, so who knows? If only this had all been during daylight what a chase it could have been...

Friday chase?

As the graphic shows the SPC has Virginia bordering a slight risk and under a "SEE TEXT" label, meaning roughly a 5% chance of severe weather in our area. An approaching front, a lee trough, high dewpoints, and a strong sun may combine to provide yet another chase opportunity tomorrow afternoon. The caveat: very weak upper level winds (<25 kts all the way up to the 500 mb level). So, unless we can get an outflow boundary and local cold pools going I'm not sanguine about the chances of severity. However...I will be prepared!

Impromptu evening chase

As I wound up mowing the grass this evening I noticed a cell just to the east, so I grabbed my cameras and darted off to a couple of observation points. These showers, growing under an upper level cold pool of air, didn't provide much (if any) lightning but may have dropped some hail. The bottom photo shows what appeared to be a rotating wallcloud with perhaps a thin hail shaft underneath. The top picture was taken a bit later and shows a gust front with what may have been a dissipating wallcloud in the right center. I haven't reviewed the video yet, so that may provide a better view. Very unexpected local chase, but not one I would turn down!

June 20 King George county wallcloud and possible funnels

This video was taken looking southeastward from Rte 1 in KG county. It has been sped up several times. Check out the wallcloud formation and possible funnel spinups under the rain free updraft, then watch as a cell in the foreground shows up and exhibits some crazy cloud motions. Another portion of a great chase yesterday!

Stafford county funnel video

Here's the video of the funnel I witnessed this afternoon. (The funnel starts out in the left center of the frame.) This was taken just after I swung the chasemobile around from facing west to facing east after the rain free base had passed directly over my location. The funnel itself wasn't very far away, maybe a half mile or so. There was so much rotational movement going on that I was having trouble keeping track of everything...thank goodness for video! I would have had a better overall view had I backed off a ways, but I wanted to see the rain free base pass overhead. I figured I had enough visibility and road to get out of the way of any funnel that may touch down...
Oh, and I didn't call this one in to the Sterling NWS office. Their radar was down hard and I felt they had other things on their mind at the time. However if it had touched down (creating a tornado) I would have gladly dialed their number.

Rain free base approacheth!

These are all views of the rain free base of the cell I chased today as it approaches my location from the west. The updraft this base was part of was most definitely rotating, so it assuredly kept my attention.

Trying to produce a wallcloud!

Getting closer!

And even closer!

Cold frontal chase

Wall cloud over eastern KG county.


Nice structure shot.


Gathering scud.

Funnel over eastern Stafford county.


Chased a cell on the cold front today that had a nice mesocyclone signature and rotating rain free base that literally passed over my head...I wasn't worried since the cloud motions weren't that fast. I did see at least one funnel and several wallcloud evolutions as I chased it eastward through southeast Stafford and King George counties. More later, but these are some pix.

Yep, saw a funnel today

After reviewing the video that was rolling as the wallcloud approached Dahlgren this afternoon I remembered that I may have witnessed a funnel but wasn't sure. (A disadvantage of solo chasing is that there's only one pair of eyes to watch everything.) This video clip is at 4 times normal speed; watch the feature over top the large tree in the left center foreground. To my eyes it is rotating so it's not just scud.

King George and Westmoreland wallclouds

As I indicated in my previous post I had set up shop on the banks of the Potomac to watch the northern complex pass by over Maryland when the southern cell shown above flared and exhibited this Tornado Velocity Signature (TVS) on radar. Not being able to see northwestward over the treelines I moved south to the Dahlgren 301/206 interchange just ahead of the rain to grab this view of an obviously rotating wallcloud.
When the rain shaft caught up with me I started a series of leapfrog moves, motoring eastward on Rtes 218, 205, and eventually Route 3. Along the way I observed several configurations of this wallcloud, interspersed with CGs close enough for the thunder to make my ears ring.

The rotation was awesome, and I hope my video camera caught enough of it to be able to view it without enhancement. No hail, but that was just fine for me. I didn't identify any obvious funnels, but a video review may reveal one. Another successful chase... meaning I lucked into picking the right storm!

Mid-chase update

I'm sitting on the southern bank of the Potomac at the Rte 301 bridge watching as a large TS complex streams southeast across the river over Maryland. Southern MD is not my favorite place to chase so I'm staying put for a while. The only other chaseable storm in this system was over southern Spotsy county and was moving southeast at a pretty good clip, and I really don't want to chase in Caroline county with the abundant treelines and random road system. So here I am, having just found out the SPC issued a severe TS watch for eastern VA as well as a severe TS warning for both the cell I'm watching and the southern one. This may be more of a "spot" than a true "chase" but here I am.

Friday, maybe...tomorrow looks better!

Well, Friday does still look promising but tomorrow looks even better now. As shown above the CAPE (instability) is decent, but added to that is a cold frontal passage tomorrow afternoon accompanied by upper level winds and temperatures that are favorable for severe weather. SPC seems to agree as they've upgraded the Mid-Atlantic to the "Slight Risk" status for tomorrow. Now comes the waiting game.

Friday? Could be!

Given this depiction of high CAPE values (measure of instability) in our region Friday afternoon, all it would take for some really good storms would be a trigger to initiate lift (provided by a trough/cold front forecast to come thru) and some upper level wind support (which looks like it could be in place at the right time). Hmmmmmm.......

11 June B-U-S-T, 12 June storms

This was the radar depiction about the time I decided to head out for a chase yesterday. SPC had our area under a severe TS watch, and this line of storms was plowing into very juicy air over the Virginia Piedmont. An hour later all of this activity had vanished, leaving me with a familiar sinking feeling that a B-U-S-T was underway. Sure enough, the SPC rescinded the severe TS watch almost 3 hours before it was to expire. Fortunately I didn't go very far out of my way so I didn't waste a lot of time or money.
To help alleviate the feelings of convective failure I stopped on the way home from work today to watch a rain-free base between two cells:

The base exhibited several lowerings but nothing specific happened, which wasn't surprising since the probability of severe weather was forecast to be very low today. The next few days hold the promise of scattered general thunderstorms, but I will keep an eye out for interesting stuff!

Culpeper to Wares Crossroads chase

After this morning's storms I wasn't certain how much time the atmosphere would need to recuperate, so I hedged my bets by taking a couple hours off work and heading home to meet today's chase partner, Jonas, of the local newspaper. We left for Culpeper in his truck at 1430 and wound up at a favored viewing spot just east of there waiting for convection to take hold. Using my trusty internet connection I realized that a robust line was building west of the Blue Ridge but would take a while to cross over into the Piedmont, so we relocated southeast down Rte 522 after a quick snack stop. We sat and watched as the line cleared the ridgeline and trudged in our direction, providing a nascent wallcloud and plenty of CGs:

As the rain approached we retreated southeastward ahead of it, stopping once to snap more photos before beating feet to the Unionville intersection and checking radar once again. To my surprise I noticed an outflow boundary shooting northwestward from storms that had collapsed east of Richmond, and it looked as if it would intersect "our" storms not far from us. We pushed a bit further southeast before parking and watching as "our" storms basically paused in mid-flight as they hit the outflow boundary and began pushing up more updrafts. Once the rain (and CG's) got close we moved further down 522 to Ware's Crossroads, where I realized that we were going to be surrounded by the burgeoning convection and wouldn't be able to avoid punching through some tough weather. Thus, we chose to do a "static core punch" and waited out the rain, wind, and very prolific CGs.
After things cleared out Jonas motored back north and we came across this scene on I-95 before arriving back at my house at 2030:
All in all it was a very satisfying chase, one which Jonas seemed to also enjoy even tho' we didn't see any real rotating wallclouds. More chasing may be on the horizon the next few days!

Upcoming Tuesday chase?

Based on this graphic from the SPC and looking at a couple of forecast models there may be some chasing coming this week. Tuesday (and likely Wednesday) looks like the instability and moisture that will be streaming back into our region will mix with a lee trough east of the Blue Ridge to provide some decent storms. Upper level winds aren't going to be very strong, but outflow boundaries and the ever-present Bay breeze east of I-95 may combine to provide some severe cells. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to squeeze in a couple more chases this week, but that is a matter to be resolved starting Tuesday!

3 June wallcloud wrapup

This wallcloud video has been sped up several times to show the rotation I was seeing yesterday in one manifestation of this repeating feature. Still don't know if I actually witnessed a funnel from this location or if it was just scud.

June 3rd Culpeper to Fredericksburg wall cloud

Whew! Today was so eventful that it's hard to convey what all happened. I was able to get away and head out early to the Culpeper vicinity, arriving there about 1500 as individual cells were beginning to swell. After some deliberation I took on the southern cells since the northern ones looked like they were bound for suburbia and heavy traffic. After one U-turn I finally made my way over to Rte 15 south of Culpeper where I saw the beginnings of a wall cloud underneath a cell that was skirting east/northeastward along the Blue Ridge:
Deciding to follow this storm proved to be a wise and productive decision. As it continued on its path I moved to a position just east of Culpeper and a witnessed a wall cloud over the town, which I promptly reported to NWS Sterling. As the rain neared I retreated further eastward to a favorite viewing spot near Stevensburg and watched as the feature drew in scud from the rainshaft and began wrapping up into this:

Again, I dutifully dialed NWS Sterling and called in another wall cloud report, for which the met on the other end thanked me and then added that if I saw any hail to call back in. Guess they weren't interested in rotating features today! When this feature fell apart I continued east on Route 3 and stopped a couple of miles further down to watch as the storm regathered itself:
(Couldn't tell if that was a funnel or just scud, so I didn't call this one in...no hail!!)
As this system churned eastward I kept abreast or just ahead of it through Lignum and then Wilderness, finally stopping again off Old Plank Road about 4 miles west of I-95 and saw this:
At this point my trusty internet connection informed me that the storm had a radar-indicated TVS (tornado vortex signature) so I determined to keep a very close eye on it despite the miserable afternoon traffic. I finally made it across I-95 to Route 1, where I parked just north of Four Mile Fork and watched as the feature crawled toward me, gathering strength and showing inflow bands. When it finally got too close I headed east on Mine Road after snapping this over my shoulder (I was stopped at a traffic signal!):
At this point the road system (or lack thereof) and the heavy traffic conspired to dump me into the core of the storm which had a signicant hail signature. I drove through intermittent hail up to the size of quarters (no dents that I have found yet) and made it home in time to eat a quick pizza dinner and then head back out to watch a second line pound through our vicinity as darkness fell. So many photos and videos yet to look at...more to come!

June 2nd boomers!

As I indicated in an earlier post the model progs for today appeared to hold a good potential for severity, and boy did it happen! As I write this an incredible lightning show is ongoing and even more severe cells are approaching the area. (I'm not chasing because I refuse to do so at night.) After I attained a measure of situational awareness on the rapidly building cells over Culpeper county I headed west of I-95 to intercept the beginnings of a line. After struggling through the incessant Route 3 traffic near Spotsylvania Mall I finally got situated around 1630 just off Catharpin Road where I watched the cells develop. The three images above show various lowerings and features that never quite developed while I watched, including one feature almost overhead that could have been a mesocyclone signature. The lightning show was inprocess even then, with CGs dropping down all around the western horizon.
I vacated when the rain arrived, heading southward through Spotsylvania courthouse to a spot a few miles southeast of there where I stopped again and photoed this feature:

Again, CGs were flashing down all around with cool thunder couplets. When I get a chance to review and edit the video clips I'm sure I'll have some vidcaps to post.
Leaving there I moved south on Route 1 to Thornburg, but before I got there the now-congealed line pushed a strong outflow boundary through, picking up a lot of dust with the 30+ mph wind. I wound up east of there in Caroline county as the line section I was chasing passed just north of me, dumping a bit of heavy rain and some pea-sized hail on my location. (My trusty internet connection allowed me to miss the main hail core.) I arrived home near 1830, just before the next set of cells began steaming our way. Good chase, but more severity is due here tomorrow!