Man, what a great storm we got last night here in Caledonia! Though actually, I can’t say exactly how it was in Caledonia because I was in my car tracking with the squall line, belting eastward down 100th St in a frenzied attempt to catch up with and outpace the gust front.
I didn’t succeed. Just west of Alden Nash Avenue, a large tree blocked both lanes of the road. Pulling into a driveway, I phoned in a report to KGRR, then managed to squeeze around the treetop and continue on.
Just south of Alto on Alden Nash, traffic was stopped where another large tree had fallen. I turned around and headed east on 76th St only to encounter yet another good sized tree lying on the road. I slid past this one as well, and then, after phoning in another report, completed the big block back into Alto and fueled up at the gas station.
At this point, I had my buddy Bill Oosterbaan on the phone. He was down in Tennessee, but he was following the storm on radar. Since I was chasing sans laptop, I wondered where the line was now located. With I-96 just a couple miles north of me, I had a half-cocked notion that I might still have a chance of catching up with the front of the storm once I hit the Interstate. But Bill informed me that the storm was already halfway to Lansing.
No real surprise there, but nevertheless, nuts. End of chase. Still, there was plenty of lightning crawling the clouds to enjoy. So with my fuel tank replenished, I caught 68th St east and soon found myself once again having to grease my way past a downed tree. Nasty, scraping sound–ugh!
My thoughts turned to Ben Holcomb. Oh, he’d be having a picnic with this system, I thought. Why he ever left this storm chaser’s paradise called Michigan for Oklahoma City I’ll just never understand. Might as well rub some salt into the wound. So I gave him a call, and he told me that he, like Bill, had been tracking the storm front on radar. He informed me that he’d observed base level winds of 88.5 knots on GR2AE. Over 100 mph! Zounds! That, if you please, is one sweet little zephyr. I doubt winds reached quite that speed anywhere on the ground, but we most certainly got one heck of a blow. I’ve encountered my share of trees blocking roads, but I’ve never had my progress consistently blocked by them. Driving through the Alto area last night was like navigating a maze and hitting dead end after dead end.
More weather is on the way later today as a warm front lifts north through Michigan. With 0-6km shear around 55 knots forecast, things could once again get interesting.
