The snow has been flying today, as it has consistently for the past week, but at least the temperatures have risen into the balmy low twenties. For several days, they were down into the single digits, making for some bitterly cold days. And we had it good. Across the lake, in Wisconsin, I saw readings as low as -14 degrees Fahrenheit. Had it gotten that chilly here, I’d have been sorely tempted to put on a long-sleeve shirt before venturing outside.
Just kidding. This is has been some cold weather. January 2008 has proved to be a month of extremes. Two weeks ago, tornadic thunderstorms erupted as far north as Racine, Wisconsin, and I was chasing supercells in Missouri. Now, this. Such is life in Michigan, land of variety, contrast, and freezing your butt off.
It’s okay, though. March is only five weeks away, and for me, that marks the arrival of storm chasing season. Of course, I’m being optimistic here–Michigan winters have that effect on me. Wanting to push the envelope comes naturally this time of year. But I”m not being unrealistic. March produces some toothsome chase scenarios, as blobs of juicy Gulf of Mexico moisture begin to push northward into regions of radical lapse rates, wild helicities, and screaming jets.rnrnIf I sound a little overeager for severe weather right now, blame it on cabin fever. I’ve been cooped up in this icebox far too long. But the truth is, while I’ll chase the big storms when they visit my area, I have no desire for them to do so. The southern half of Michigan”s lower peninsula is simply too populous. Sure, a lot of it is still rural, but you can’t travel far without encountering a town, often a good-sized one. This is not the Great Plains. It’s Michigan, a state checkered with population centers–not a good place to have some mile-wide Oklahoma-style wedge carve a twenty-mile path.rnrnMichigan is also heavily forested, which doesn’t make storm chasing easy. It”s not as bad as chasing in the Ozarks, where one’s view of an approaching storm can be blocked by mountainous terrain, but it’s also not as good as those wide, gracious, open stretches of Kansas grassland.
Frankly, the most chaser-friendly territory I’ve seen so far has been central Illinois. It’s not only incredibly, breathtakingly flat, but it also has a beautiful gridwork of nice, straight roads, roads that behave themselves and rarely offer you unpleasant surprises. No clay that turns into chocolate pudding when wet and tries its damndest to slurp your vehicle into a ditch. No miles and miles of driving like a maniac to the nearest river crossing twenty miles away while the big storm of the day moves off to the east. Just, for the most part, a nice setup of very gentlemanly north-south/east-west roads spaced at regular intervals.
That’s Illinois: you not only can see the storms as far as forever, but you can also get to them without breaking a sweat.
It’s nice.
To all you Great Lakes chasers–I hope to bump into you out there sometime this spring.
