2009.06.03
Close-to-home storm chase yields storm structure photos
I sometimes get asked "Why don't you storm chasers just chase the storms that happen around here?" I have a multi-part answer to that question that includes references to this area's terrain and tree cover, and the atmospheric patterns that typically yield much more powerful and photogenic storms in the central U.S. But the first part of the answer is "We DO chase storms around here." A day back from the 2-week Virginia Tech storm chase trip to the Plains states, severe storms were popping all around Southwest Virginia today. Most of these were pulse-type storms that went up and down quickly, meaning any effort to track one down would lead to getting there only as it collapsed and died. But late in the afternoon, a short bow-segment type storm with a little more longevity moved out of the Blacksburg area toward the Roanoke Valley, and I was able to get to a higher location off Electric Road in Southwest Roanoke County to get some structure shots of a stacked shelf cloud and what may have been a brief wall cloud near the southwestern flank of the storm. The bulk of this storm shifted into the northern Roanoke Valley and gradually dissipated.
Today's pop-up severe weather has yielded a cluster of severe weather reports in Southwest Virginia, including one report of a large tree blocking a road in Salem.
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