Chase LogThe day 1 outlook for today suggested that the area could experience a bow echo which could contain severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes. After watching the line of storms form and turn into a bow echo on radar, I headed out to see what I could find. I took Rt. 45 south to the Monticello Road. I went west on the Monticello Road for about 5 miles and then took a N/S country road. Until I turned on that road, I couldn’t tell from the sky that anything was going on, everything was just kinda overcast. As I progressed northward on this road, I noticed a dark line of clouds to my NW. That’s when I noticed the lightning and the ominous clouds forming. A few minutes later, I saw what appeared to be a debris cloud from a tornado, which really got my adreneline pumping!!

I pulled off the road and began to dig out my other camcorder. By the time I got the camcorder out, the outflow from the storm was slamming me from the west. I decided to backtrack and get out of the way of the storm. When I turned around, I accidently hit the power button on my camcorder that was mounted in the car and missed the part of the storm that was blowing me off the road, hehe. When I finally realized the camcorder was off and turned it back on, I started filming some lightning which was one of the most fierce I’d ever encountered. At one point, a bolt probably hit a block from me and knock out the power in that area, which can be noted by my increased vocabulary on the video tape!

Overall, it was exciting, yet disappointing. The video that I did capture was very short and the quality is really crappy, but it is video at least. I’m still not sure exactly if the debris cloud was merely a downdraft or if it was possibly from a tornado. It was still a fun and exhilirating chase for me, especially going by myself rather than with other chasers. It was a good lesson and hopefully I’ll have the video issues worked out for the next chase.