APRIL 23, 2005 STORMS

FIRST SEVERE STORMS OF THE 2005 STORM SEASON!!

APRIL 23, 2005

A large upper level low and a strong cold front started to approach the area Friday into Saturday afternoon. This same system caused large hail, tornadoes, strong winds and heavy rains across the plains southern states earlier in the week. We had a few small isolated storms develop out a head of the cold front on Saturday afternoon in North Carolina move northeast into the area. One cell become the dominant storm and quickly became severe as it moved into northern Virginia Beach. Cristal and I started to head in that direction to intercept the storm but traffic was a nightmare and we were unable to reach the Beach before it moved out to sea. A little later, a line of storms began to fire along the cold front as it moved eastward into Hampton Roads. There were several warnings issued with these storms but nothing to write home about. As they approached, we saw that the line started to gust out and that pretty much ended the day there. We drove to the beach after shooting a few photos of the gust front to try and catch it as it moved through and off the coast and be ready for any lightning that I could get on video. Like I said, nothing to write home about. I have to check the video to see if I caught anything at all. Below are a few of the photos taken as the storms approached.

Click Here to see the short video clip!!

Looking eastward at a severe warned storm over Norfolk and Virginia Beach. Cristal and I were on Portsmouth Blvd. headed for I-264.

Once on I-264 we headed east trying to run down the storm. Both of these images were taken from the front window of my Explorer.

Just before entering the Downtown Tunnel on I-264, we could see the backside of the anvil a bit of inflow into the storm from the west.

Once we gave up the chase due to a traffic delay, we returned to Portsmouth to wait out the cold front. Here a few distant storms were playing in the sunlight along Airline Blvd.

Once the cold front started to approach, a line of storms started to fire. Before they reached us here in Portsmouth at my old high school parking lot, the storms gusted out and began to weaken a bit.

A beam of light shines through the storm.

Still looking west, the light increases in a small clear area. "Beam me up Scottie"

We hit the road and went eastward to Virginia Beach to get ahead of the line as it approached the coast. The line was moving to fast for us to get ahead of it before moving offshore.

All Images Copyright Jesse V. Bass III and VaStormphoto.com