Weather, Storms & Hurricane Blog

Florida Chasing Early Spring 2008 - A Great Weekend

Sunday turned out to be a spectacular storm structure and lightning day for chasing in South-central Florida. The storms developed by midday, and I quickly did my lawn work while closely watching the skies and visible satellite loops during beaks in my outside work. By 3pm, thunderstorms were already ongoing over central Florida, and the west coast sea breeze was working it’s way east towards the western Lake Okeechobee region. So, I packed up after my lawn work was completed, and headed west for Glades County.

My first storm of the day began to develop in Glades county right along the lake coast. It quickly organized into a impressive storm, and was tracking northeastward at about 20-25mph. I continued just ahead of the storm into Southwestern Okeechobee county, where the storm really started to show some decent storm structure. The storm began to develop a microburst bulge / rain foot, with very noticeable strong straight-line winds blasting out from the core through the cow fields and across SR 70 about 4-5 miles due west of Okeechobee City. I shot off some video scenes and then blasted northeast through town and northward on SR411, where I knew I could stay ahead of the cell. Once about 15 miles north of town now, I’m now clear of tree’s and in the central Okeechobee County flats. Here is where I decided to let the core catch up to me, and sample a little of the winds. Soon I was being blasted with 50mph winds and pea size hail, blowing dust and hay, but I‘m sure the bulge I saw 20 minutes earlier was a lot stronger. I then blasted east to get back out ahead of the core and rethink my plan on the storm and to see what else was possibly developing.

I was strictly chasing visually and using NOAA Weather Radio today. I left the laptop, WxWorx and GPS at home, and was enjoying chasing old school style for a change. I soon learned of a new cell that had developed southeast of me in Martin County and was severe warned on. I knew the cell I was currently on, was going to be tough to continuing chasing with the limited road network options with the current track of the storm. So I opted to leave that storm and I blasted east towards Ft Pierce. Twenty-five minutes later, I’m now in Fort Pierce (St Lucie County) heading for the intercoastal waterway. I knew my severe thunderstorm moving in from the southwest near Indiantown, was going to cross the coast between Ft Pierce and Vero Beach. I crossed over to the east side of the intercoastal and setup under the draw bridge with open water in front of me.

As the storm approached the coast, it seemed to pulse up some, because the lightning really increased and the overall structure of the storm improved. I got well back from the water and just let the video camera roll as the lightning became extremely vivid and frequent. As you can see in these video captures of the lightning, some of the cloud-to-water strikes came very close to boaters and even my location. This went on for another 15 minutes, and then the storm moved offshore into the Atlantic and I was done with that storm.

It’s Not Over, More Storm Lovers Action To Come

I packed up and then began my drive home, but on no, there more to chase. I soon learn from Kersten at home, that there was a large line of storms moving along a outflow boundary from earlier storms up in central Florida. I soon came into view of this line shortly after speaking with her. Boy did it ever come into view! Here comes this massive, multi-tiered shelf-cloud / gust front, that was from the far southwest horizon all the way northeast off the coast. It was huge and had outstanding structure to it. A classic Florida shelf cloud scene was stetting up, so I quickly pulled off and starting to shoot a time lapse. I continued to shoot several angle of this feature for about 20 minutes and then it weakened. So, I then continued home driving in outflow winds and rain, with lightning surrounding me all the way into my driveway.

It turned out to be a outstanding day, and I had a lot of fun chasing, and came away with some great imagery of the days events. Chased through 4 counties and witnessed 3 impressive storms. I have no time this morning to edit video, but it’s coming. Even more storms expected this afternoon, so I hope to keep the trend going another day. More to come on this day with video this upcoming week.

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