To hail with it!

Yesterday afternoon we had a slight risk for storms. I was scheduled to work from 10am-6pm but had decided to go in at 8am to get some extra hours and a few other work related reasons. Around 2pm i decided to go on lunch and grab a frozen dinner I had brought to work. I stuck my dinner in the the microwave and decided to take a look at radar to see if any storms were popping up. To my surprise there is a large supercell moving through Madison county. I take off to the front of the store and tell a couple people I have to go for a little bit to check out the storms moving into the area. Of course I had left my HAM radio at home. Since my house is close to the Delaware County and Madison County line I knew i had time to swing buy my house and grab my radio. Just about as I was leaving my house the storm prompted a tornado warning. Since I had to work on thid day I was just using radarscope on my iPhone to look at radar. I could see a very small area of rotation which is what warranted the tornado warning. I was more concerned about large hail that was associated with this system than I was the tornado threat. Many of the other people that I chase with were also on the storm including two of the other members of SWAT (www.SWATChasers.com). They were able to intercept a pretty nice hail core and get live footage to FOX59 in Indianapolis whom we are partners with. This was very important in our partnership. They have helped us out tremendously and we want to pay them back with things like that. I never really intercepted anything except small pea-size hail and heavy rains. My goal was to cover the tornado threat. Since I was in my own vehicle I was not looking for the ping pong size hail in anyway, lol. I did drive through Hartford City on the way back which is where a pretty large hail core was identified on radar. I witness many leaves on the ground in the area. I am not sure how large the hail was in the area, but I am guessing at least quarter size with all the leaves down.  I got back to work at around 4pm and some of the people at work asked me where I had went. As much as I hate retail I will be honest it has been really good to me with my storm chasing ventures.

Last evening we were able to get the MESONET installed on the SWERV (Severe Weather Emergency Response Vehicle) This will allow us to measure and record pressure, temperature, dewpoint, wind speed and direction, rainfall amounts and a few other things. We are very anxious to try this out. Thursday will be that day after we have another important meeting.

That was my first post ever so be nice. I hope to write something everyday.