September 3rd 2002

General Analysis:
I had been watching a low pressure system on the MRF since I first noticed any storm potential from it about 180 hours out on the MRF. Everyday not much changed with the models and things seemed to look better and for storm potential so I go my hopes and crossed my fingers. As it turns out things went downhill about 24 hours out when the ETA showed the front to move through 4 hours sooner than planned. Although this was only a small time change it would place the front over the region by about 2PM when conditions were not supportive of severe weather. If it had held off until about 4PM things would have been very different. In fact the front passed without triggering anything except for a few isolated showers which meant that the potential storm energy was there except it was just heavily capped by mid and upper level conditions that did not support severe weather at all.

	This was going to be my last chance all year at a possible chase and with it being such a slow year I was now willing to take every chance that I got to head out after a storm whether it was severe or not. So I set my alarm and got up around 8:30AM. Glancing out the window I figured I would head back to bead for another 5minutes... pah too bad when I woke up it was 10:30 and this really messed me up. I was planning to head about 3 hours east into the Kingston area which was now impossible since the storms were already starting to fire and I would be playing a major game of catch-up. My best hopes were now to play conditions in my home area and hope for the best. Not much was happening in the morning except for some mid level cloud.
	Various waves of energy were being pushed through at a fairly fast rate which were defined by thin lines of cu. I remained very hopeful that ones of these waves would be strong enough to trigger off some convection. Gee so much for that hope :(
	Ok by now it was 2:30 and things were looking very bleak. Heck there were not even any TCU but just across the border things were now heating up. I decided to take a peak towards lake Ontario to see if I could see anything and surprisingly there was a storm anvil not to far away. This gave me a new hope and I decided to see if I could play my cards right and catch some backside development along the front since all the potential energy here in Ontario was not released but just now surpressed under the cap.
	After a quick review of SFC conditions and a check with the satellite I was off eastward in hopes of catching some good convection I saw on the visible satellite. No sooner did I get out that saw the overshooting top and storm anvil on the NE horizon. So my goal was now to escape rush hour traffic and catch the storms on the horizon ASAP.
	Quickly stopping for gas I saw some backside development along the front near the southern shore of lake Ontario.
	It seemed to be picking up in pace which made me gear up to get east even faster.
	Cross the 400 along 7 some new storms could be seen going up. I was not sure whether to head south into the city and try to get a better view or to head NE and catch up with the original stuff I was after which I could actually get under. As I was approaching the exit suddenly I decided to aim for the 407 in a attempt to race to hurry up and get to the storm. On a separate note: When you look at almost all the cloud pictures they seem to look really elevated or cut off near the base by a blue/gray line. This is actually the humidity piled up on the south side of the front limiting visibility below 850mb. I was on the north side of the front in the dry but extremely hot air where visibly was not hampered since there was very little humidity.
	Soon after getting on the 407 I was very relieved that there was no rush hour traffic and headed directly east towards the developing storm.
	This was actually a nice tower going up over Lake Ontario.

	Nearly 20 minutes into the trip I noticed that the storm I was after looked really good.

	The tower over lake Ontario had also blossomed into a storm.
	Upon entering Pickering I saw this mother of an anvil. The thing was at the least 150km wide.
	The satellite image gives a better idea of what I was seeing.
	Development over lake Ontario.
	I pulled over about half way on my journey and decided to head south since the storm I was after starting showing some major structural collapse. It was probably because the strong cap on the back side of the cold front closed in and surpressed the updraft since by no means was there any lack of hot air considering it was 32C outside!. After taking some landscape shots I decided to head a little further south.
	I eventually found myself a nice road which somewhere along the line turned into a private dirt road. This meant there was no traffic and I took the liberty to set my camera up on the yellow line for some shots (hehehe). On the horizon a nice little TCU caught my attention so I decided to focus my photographs on it in the hopes it would become a storm while trying to balance the image given there were powerlines to my left and a hill to my right.

	Fresh inflow was seen to the west of the storm (the visible puffy cloud) which meant that further development was going to take place.
	The structure is starting to form.
	After about 10 minutes the TCU reached the LOC (also called EQL) at about 38,000ft. The anvil is also seen starting to develop as it curls outward.



	Structurally the storm became very stable and fresh development was seen on both the SW and NW flanks. NLDN units also detected CG's although I never heard any thunder.

	This was a very interesting corckscrew updraft structure that popped up about 5 minutes after the above picture. It was caused by a combination of vertical shear and anvil outflow.

	The storm was now 30 minutes into its life and a nice overshooting top became visible.

	The top was about 40,000ft and the radar suggested a 50% chance of hail less than half an inch.
	This is the satellite image perspective on the storm taken at about the same time as the image above.



	Now just to the west of the storm there was a ton of TCU activity with various short lived CB's and many many pop up fade away type TCU (such as the one just to the left of the center of the image).
	Eventually I got bored and headed back west. "OH NO!!! #%$@" were the words that came out of my mouth when I turned my head around to the see the storm was wonderfully matured and I was driving AWAY! So right then and there I pulled over to get more pics.
	This was the activity just west of my pretty little storm.
	If you look at the tower to the left of the center of the image you will notice another corkscrew updraft.
	This picture was taken looking due SW. In the dead center of the image you can see a massive anvil (the same one I saw earlier). It was now spanning something like 300km!
	That anvil is HUGE!
	Another last look back.
	This TCU is interesting because no sooner did it go up outflow from a nearby storm chopped its base off turning it into a powder puff of supercooled water.
	This storm is actually non related to the anvil seen in previous pics. What happened here was backside development allowed a storm to form and protrude through the already existing anvil. Pretty cool.
	This stuff is going to go all day.
	Ok so eventually I decided enough cloud gazing. It was time to buy some supplies for... ugh.. cough cough... CHOKE. Sorry I can't say the word but you know what it is... :S As I was coming out of the store I noticed this really nice storm and with the sunset it made everything look so nice.
	Just beautiful!
	Within 5 minutes of the image above a brief and rare halo of red seemed to cover the sky. All in all it was pretty good. I never did get to chase and sure, it was not the best way to end the chase year (may not be over yet) but at least I saw something and got some nice pics that I like.