June 2nd 2009

In my neighborhood again... Funny how all the good stuff starts to show up, after you have already clocked up many miles and gas on chasing...Hahaaaa!

Anyway, some amazing shelf clouds close in on Speedway Indiana...
My husband kindly took these for me, as I was on a late shift at work this day. The power went out for a short time after my shift, so that Steak n Shake was not forthcoming that night...

Thems the breaks I guess. Anyway:

Kudos go to Gary, My husband for taking the photo's.

May 30th-My Neighborhood

This has to be the best Storm event, here in my State, so far. This happened on Saturday May 30th, a couple hours after I had made it back home from my first day on my new job...

At about 8pm that night, some really awesome supercells moved in on Speedway Indiana, to pay us a well-deserved visit, Tornado sirens and all. It was basically awesome, because we didnt have to head out far at all. We primarily stayed at home, on the front lawn, with cameras pointing at the sky and nader-sirens blaring...Everyone else of course stayed indoors, and probably figured we were mad. Gary got up on the roof of the house to get some of these pics.

That was just the start...

At about 9pm, we decided to head out to the coke-lot to get a better look at things. We jumped in the car and headed north of the neighborhood, to the coke lot.

We saw some very questionable structure once down there, It turned out to be a wall-cloud. Anyone else probably would of had it down as a wedge. I knew it wasnt, as there was no signs of rotation, and the only thing to fool me were the trees that were hindering my view. Anyway, I got one or two shots of it, cos it looked kinda cool. Also I took some photos of the big meso to the east of it, which hung over the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a while.

(Note; I hate my camera. I am still using point and shoot compact and a cellphone (Blackberry)...so quality sucks!

This time next season I will be the proud owner of the Nikon D90...worry not!!)

...And this time next season, I will be out on the plains a lot more, too!

May 29th 09 Local Chase

We started off chasing a discrete cell up in Lebanon, IN, which was looking pretty good, until we started down this one country road just north of Lebanon, only to be hindered by the fact, a semi had rolled over further down the street...luckily for us, a local was out on the road, directing traffic to turn round and divert, before we got too far down...We appreciated that, as it meant we were not suck for long, we just did a u-ey in someones driveway, then headed south again. We then carried on due east, but by this time, the cell I was on literally fell apart right in front of me...It had a rain shaft that lasted all of 2 minutes. It basically ate itself up, and dumped on its updraft, which for a while had been pretty good...




Lebanon cell in its early stages

Anyway...I thought that was going to be it for the night. My radar had crapped out on me, and I was getting pretty pissed at that point.
We sat and discussed what to do next, and I suggested we head west down 70, because there could be some good stuff brewing over there. Anyway, we headed back to 65, to get back over to 70. As we were heading down 65, to the west I could see some pretty awesome looking structures hanging over the I70 region.

I was taking pics and posting them right onto facebook, as I was travelling...
(Pics of the I70 storms below)

We headed in the general direction of I70, and it wasnt long before we got ourselves a really awesome lightning show. We decided we would take US40, so we didnt get all the traffic and semi's etc. I cannot stand chasing on the Interstate...

We lost daylight pretty rapidly, and finally came to Brazil, IN, when we actually found ourselves under this huge meso. I had it back up on radar, and it looked very impressive. Best storm we have happened upon, so far here in Indy! (It was preceded and followed by at least two or three others just like it. I was amazed they didnt all congeal together, like most of these systems tend to here in Indiana...)

We sat in a parking lot for a while and took in the lightning show. Literally every flash was CG! All around us. It was wild, and the rain was also really heavy. This was a slow mover. This cell wasnt going anywhere for a while.

After about 20 minutes, when we decided the storms had died down a bit, we decided to head for home, as it was now 11.30pm on a work night (oops), and we were both beat!

We turned the truck round to get back on the highway, and as we did, a bolt hit the ground on the median, practically beside us! That is now FOUR occasions where I have had close shaves with CG! It was really weird, cos this time, it was night time, and the lightning was so much brighter, It almost stung my eyes!

Anyway, we headed home, after a successful evening, as such. No tornadoes in the end...But what a lightning show! I could see it for miles in the distance, still dropping bolts in the same area, for ages. That was a good strong storm. I like!!

Got back home, and not a drop of rain had even touched the ground-surprize surprize!

May 26th 09: Cumulus clouds finally come to Indiana...

(Here I am again, adding some stuff thats a month old, or so. Yeah, I know....shoulda made this blog last summer, really! Dammitt!)


::Random photo's of cumulus clouds...something we havent seen much of here in Indy, til about now...(May 26th)Maybe at last the storms will start showing up locally::

Favorite photos of 2009 (April 09)

I am posting up a few sections dedicated to my favorite photo's I have taken this season, as A) I have only started this blog in June, and B) It would take forever to go through each and every chase that I have been on this season...there have been a fair few. Most of them in my local area, and a couple other chases in other states.

Vague rotation, falling apart in Leavenworth, KS. (An EF2 dropped down further north and destroyed a couple of buildings north of the toll on I70) April 24th 09

Council Bluffs, Iowa: April 23rd 09

Council Bluffs, Iowa April 243rd 09

Indiana, Nr Bloomington, Early April

Indiana, Nr Bloomington, Early April. Gar hydroplaned on the highway this night! :o

June 11 2009

I was still at work when I noticed some good cells on radar, building in the south-east part of the State. They were looking pretty impressive. I was only on shift for another hour, til it was time to get off work.

This was taken in a High School parking lot as I was heading out of work

I pretty much ran outta there and noticed a huge shelf cloud hanging over the back of the building, coming over from the west.

These was taken on I465 heading across town (Interesting cloud structure to the left... This was just some scud stuff though...no rotation there!!)

I knew it wouldnt be long before this storm dumped on us, so we started heading south-east to get in front of it, I knew we would miss the discrete cells further south, as it was now 5.30pm and we would not have time, due to work commitments the next day etc...so we decided to go for the leading edge of this big squall line instead.
We got dumped on, while we were fighting traffic to get out of the metro. Finally got out of the beltway and hit 74 south, with intentions of exiting, and going east a bit. Unfortunately it was already clear on radar at that point that it was beginning to weaken. We didnt bother to head east on that basis.

We finally got ahead south of the storm, and it looked real good, and the lightning was pretty awesome, but, at this point I knew we were gonna get a regular squall. If there was any tornadoes tonight, they were gonna be well south of us...

Shelf Cloud following us down I74

I Got a couple of pics of the storm coming in and a bit of video. Not wonderful quality as I was only armed with my cellphone, as I had come straight out of work...All in all, nothing too spectacular, But it was nice to get out and sample some more storms, before they dissappear for the season, completely...

Welcome to my Chasing blog

Ok, I have been meaning to put one of these together since time immemorial. I figured I need somewhere other than Facebook to keep my best chasing pictures/blogs, etc.

2009, so far, as most of you know, has sucked big time, as far as severe wx is concerned. Anyway, I am trying to remain positive, and I will go and chase if I think there is a good opportunity. Ok, I realize at this point in the season, I am gonna be hard pressed to bag a tornado...but at the same time, right now, I am grateful for any decent severe wx, tornadic or otherwise, as I love lightning, supercell structure, dark skies and all things severe...

Its pretty late, and I got an early start tommorow, so, signing off for now... Keep checking back for updates over the next few weeks, as I put this thing together.

Lucy