WLNS TV 6 Lansing Jackson Michigan News and Weather - WLNS.COM | Chase Report 2001

Chase Report 2001

If you have a scanner you can listen in on the local Skywarn severe weather spottersat145.390MHz. When the chase van is out, you can hear my reports from callsign N8GSK

A late season storm brought one of the best threats for severe weather all year long! Two rotating supercells moved out of Indiana on a north-northeast path into southwest Michigan. I hit the road with one of our producers, Martin Finn, and headed down I-69 towards the Marshall area. Unfortunately it looked like the path of the storms would take them in areas where roads weren't plentiful -- and that was the case. The cells tracked about 10 miles either side of I-69. We met up with the activity just before it moved into south Lansing, but not wanting to be on the expressway during a possible tornado continued moving east towards 127. We turned north and just as reports of damage were coming in from Lansing caught footage on video of the culprit... It appears to have been a damaging downburst -- not a tornado.

Next we were held up by a low-hanging power line across 127, and with the storms moving at 50-60 mph combined with visibility near zero ended our chase. We continued northeast on I-69 to keep an eye out for any fresh damage but turned around near Perry.

Operations then changed over to damage surveying. We took the area from Dimondale down to Eaton Rapids and found a fairly continuous path of damage which appeared to be in the 80-100mph range! Many homes with attached garages found the doors blown in, which allowed the winds to take off the back walls and/or roofs... A cement silo was toppled, numerous large trees and power lines downed, barns damaged and more.

Click here for pictures!

August 22nd - 6pm to 10pm

When it's two months between chases you can get a little desperate... Strong storms developed in extreme southwest Michigan moving southeast - so not a factor in our area. I decided to shoot down I-69 in an attempt to catch them in Indiana. I found a nice lightshow but the worst of the activity continued to beat me to the south. In Garrett Indiana I found some major flooding problems, with a parking lot full of cars that ended up nowhere near the spots they started in! Unfortunately the area had no power and I was unable to get good enough lightning for pictures.

Nothing like waking up at 6am to the sound of a screaming weather radio! A Tornado Warning was issued for Kalamazoo and Calhoun counties, and after a quick splash in the face I was on the road south down US127 to intercept. I went west on I-94 and picked up some BEAUTIFUL cloud formations in between storms along with some vivid lightning -- but no severe weather. Check these 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

June 15th - 2pm to 6pm

A strong line of thunderstorms developed over western Michigan early in the day and made slow progress towards the area. I had my daughters with me so loaded them into my own car and went over to Ionia County to intercept the first batch. A nice shelf cloud came my way, and some gusty winds and downpouring rains but that was about it. I went down I-69 to hit the next round of rough weather, but Eaton Rapids treated me to the same rain and slightly gusty winds. My final attempt was south of Williamston, where I snapped some nice images, but again nothing exciting. Some pictures from me show the leading edge of the strong winds coming at me down a dirt road 1 2 3 4 5 , and some scenic pictures from fellow spotter Erv W8ERV #1 #2 #3  .

June 12th - 1am to 3am

You never know about these late night events... A long-lived squall line moved across Wisconsin and over Lake Michigan. We expected the line to fall apart when it hit the cool air over water -- but it actually waited until it hit shore! The southern end of the line took a sharp right turn and went down into Indiana, causing extensive wind damage. We went to Marshall and tried to get hit by the east end of the activity but saw little more than lightning and heavy rain.

May 21st - 2pm to 6pm

What originally looked like a quiet afternoon turned rapidly violent as a northward-moving warm front helped kick off tornadic thunderstorms.We took the van to Eaton County and tailed the storms looking for damage. That's just what we found in the Chester area, with an overturned airplane, some damage to a church and house and numerous downed trees. Plenty of pictures here.

Temperatures in the 70's allowed unstable air to set up ahead of an approaching cold front. Doppler radar appeared to show a strong storm moving rapidly up I-69 out of Charlotte, so I took the van to the south side of Lansing. Strong gusty winds along with very heavy rain met me near MLK & I-96, and I returned east to attempt making it out front of the line. That didn't work, but possible sightings of a funnel near Mason led me to turn south. I was in the area but found nothing of interest.

The threat appeared to be over after the first line, but that thought changed as several Severe Thunderstorm Warnings were issued for our western counties. I took the van out I-96 and let the storm meet me just south of Portland. I snapped a few nice pictures there as winds gusted to near 40mph, then came back on I-96 to Eagle. There we took some great snapshots of the rain curtains moving at us, and measured gusts to 45mph.

Before ending the chase we went down towards Eaton Rapids but with sunset didn't give good lighting for images, and the winds had weakened to the 30-35mph range. Throughout this event little in the way of lightning was seen, and none actually with the second round of storms.

April 9th - 3am to 5am

A fine start to the chase season... A few storms developed over northwest Indiana and made their way into southwest Michigan. I went down I-69 to Charlotte and watched an incredible lightning display, but radar was indicated hail to my south so I continued down the road to check it out. Some pea-sized hail was the worst of it near Olivet, so I made my way back north to head home.

That trip was aborted when another strong cell popped up in Ionia County. I stopped just north of Eagle and watched as it passed by to my north, with temperatures only in the middle 40's! No severe weather, just a little more hail, but I snapped a few nice lightning photographs.

Check out these images: 1 2 3 4 5 6