April 3, 2006 severe storms...with a creepy surprise

On Monday morning the SPC (Storms Prediction Center) issued a moderate risk of severe weather for the east coast including Virginia and North Carolina. The videoographer took the day off to chase through the day as he knew there was a chance of storms early in the day as the warm front moved through the area. As he thought, the storms pushed their way through north central North Carolina leaving behind hail and some wind damage reports through Raleigh. He headed south from his home in Portsmouth, Va. to Elizabeth City, NC. Watching the radar and the storms pulsing some as they started to move into the area, they seemed to have exploded just west of the city. The mobile threatnet had a shear marker showing 92mph on the northern end of the line just about 2 miles or less from where he was. As the rain started to fall, the wind picked up quickly and gusted near 45mph. There were large bolts out ahead of the main line and he had video rolling on it. Once the rain began to fall heavily, he pulled back and started to move back to the north up Rt. 17 toward Virginia. As he laid my camcorder down, of course, a bolt flies across the road in front of me and struck a tree less than 20 yards away. Once back in Virginia, he went to Virginia Beach and picked up fellow chaser William Coyle. They decided the best plan would be head west down Rt. 58 toward Emporia where they would meet up with another chaser from Richmond, Bill Hark. They watched data from SPC for watches issued, and radar and satellite images. As expected, a tornado watch was issued for just about all of Virginia and North Carolina around 4pm. As the storms started to take shape to their west, they noticed that the isolated storms they were looking for were not going to happen. Soon severe thunderstorm warnings were being issued for the cells as they moved out of the mountains and headed their way. As the storms "lined" out, they jumped on I-95 north and hauled it to Petersburg hoping to find a spot to pull over near an open field and shoot some lightning as the storms approached. Well, the storms were moving a little faster than thought, and they met the line just south of Petersburg near Hwy. 629. They headed east trying to stay ahead of the line as the storms began to "gust out" quickly. William and him reached Rt. 460 and quickly turned south. They figured we would stay out front, stop along the way and shoot as the storms pushed east and southeast into Hampton Roads. Well they stopped near Waverly and set up to shoot the last daylight images of the massive gust front as it approached. They shot for about 15 minutes, quickly got back into the truck and headed south once again. Once they reached Rt. 58 and approached the city of Chesapeake they ran into a hail core where the hail was about penny to marble sized. They got on I-64 west and ran into another hail core in Bowers Hill and it was slightly bigger and coming down harder and longer. The road looked like it was getting covered in rock salt. They drove about 2 miles and we were back into the rain. So they ended up going to a gas station on Independence Blvd. and Virginia Beach Blvd. to shoot video and photos of the lightning.

Channel: Science & Technology
Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am
Author: stormchaser3751

Length: 08:31
Rating: 4.53
Views: 27330

Tags: amazing  Carolinas  environment  most  severe  southeast  thunderstorm  us  Virginia  

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