Grain bins lifting in front of my eyes...

High speed inflow winds...

Ping pong sized hail...

Hearts racing!

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Supernatural Sunset SupercellGrain bins lifting in front of my eyes...
High speed inflow winds...
Ping pong sized hail...
Hearts racing!
This is the tornado warned supercell that potentially put down a tornado as we took shelter from the hail in a nearby driveway with grain bins lifting around us.

 

...this is how my chase ended...this is how it began: 

Who knew this would be the last year of storm chasing in a "free" state of mind. My only cares at this time was the long drive and the high gas prices! How times have changed. How these days mean so much more knowing what I know now! So glad I lived for the moment and lived life to the fullest at the time and still to this day!

It was Sunday, July 7, 2019, severe storms were forecasted for the day...it was a tough decision knowing I had to be up at 6am to go to work the next day. However, with little storm action so far in 2019 and will to live life to it's fullest...I decided to make the 7+ hr drive and set off to the LAND OF THE LIVING SKIES, Saskatchewan on a solo trip in the hopes of seeing spectacular skies, towering culumus, lightning, the prairies in full canola bloom and the potential for tornadoes. Can't beat that on any given day...so why not?!!?

I made it just in time to collide with the first gorgeous supercells! On one of the first cells just after seeing a funnel cloud drop down and back up again, I met up with Jordan Carruthers of @MBstormchasers (fellow Manitoba storm chaser). We teamed up to chase down the beautiful spinning beefy clouds! I led while I had data and Jordan took over when I fell into data hell hole. It is was this data hell hole that got us into a little bit of trouble a little while later...

It was the end of the day after no tornadoes and chasing down our dreams, when a final "tail end charlie" storm fired. We fled towards it as fast as we could (legally) and made it just in time for the above scene. It was spectacular! The perfect storm you would expect to see in the US was in front of us at sunset! Exhilerating!

We got the Tornado Warning on our phones about 10 mins before getting there, it was spinning and radar indicated it COULD potentially produce a tornado. While standing there, the storm took a breath of life, flashed lightning off to the north as moist inflow winds blew past us into the supercell as it crept closer and closer into us. 

As the storm was moving straight east, before it hit us I looked at our options. We could continue South and stay out of the storms path and continue to watch it, we could go north and miss out on any other structure views with danger of entering the bears cage (Rain/Hail core) or head down a crappy south-east gravel road to continue watching the storm, then after 30kms head back North.  With darkness falling, it was 10:30 pm back home and knowing I had to work the next day, we checked the radar and not noticing the timestamp on the radar image, it didn't look too bad IF we were to have got over taken by the storm. The hail looked small and the rain core didn't look too bad. Rotation had already passed over us, safe...right?!?

WELL, not exactly...it was a powerful storm and it quickly picked up speed and turned towards us very quickly. As the road wasn't the best and it turned dark, we quickly realized we had to stop, ride it out, then head 3 miles back to take the main road north. We took shelter in a farm yard with grain bins. Jordan parked facing North, while I wedged myself facing West in between 2 grain bins (One in front of me and one on my left) to protect from the ping pong ball sized hail being thrown at us. As we waited it out, all of a sudden we got strong inflow winds streaming past Jordan going north, while I had strong outflow winds heading south. The grain bins were lifting to the south from the RFD (Rear Flank Downdraft) Winds. It was intense to say the least. As the stom seemed to have passed over us and with no data to check, we left and headed west, making our way to the only North road option. As we drove we were hit with another strong system and quarter sized hail, we continued on and finally made it out safely to the other side and drove the 7+ hours home. It was around 6am by the time I reached my driveway and bed. I managed to get about 1 hour of sleep before working the full day and crashing immediately after! At lunch a friend and chaser we ran into on that storm messaged me to ask if we were ok. He showed me the radaar image below showing strong rotation near our location at the time we were taking shelter. It is very possible we had a small tornado directly in front of us and didn't know. Lessons were definitely learned that day, but I wouldn't change a thing! WAS AMAZING!

Never Stop Chasing! Never Stop Learning!

 

 

 

 

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