Last Minute Ohio Chase

I was not expecting to be in Ohio on Wednesday, but after waking up early and reviewing data, I had to give it a shot.

While I wait for the next extended chase out west, I remain open to one-day chases across the eastern U.S. Ohio is pushing it, being an eight hour drive just to the eastern border from Connecticut. However, I consider Ohio to be on the edge of a broad portion or the country that regularly sees tornadoes. Ohio has also seen their fair share of significant and long track tornadoes.

As a quick summary, I intercepted two tornado warned cells early/mid-Wednesday afternoon, encountered large hail twice and got to see some good storm structure just before sunset. Although the ultimate goal of seeing a tornado was not met, I still consider it a successful chase day with plenty learned/re-established.

As is often the case, time is critical and it never hurts to have too much of it. Storms were already firing shortly after midday (despite most model guidance suggesting 2-3 hours later) and the first Tornado Warning was a bit earlier than I expected. With that said, I was ready to go by about 2 p.m. after leaving Connecticut at 5 a.m.

While much of Ohio is relatively chaser friendly with farmland and a low forest canopy, the eastern third of the state is still very much hilly and forested. I was largely stuck chasing in the eastern part of the state and visibility was somewhat of an issue for this day.

As I return back home, I’ve already driven 1,140 miles in 24 hours and will finish up with more than that in the end. I have some footage to edit with a time lapse of a supercell just before sunset likely being of most interest. There will be some footage of hail as well, but the largest I saw was just 1″/quarter-sized and that was two times.

Stay tuned for more footage and such, hopefully being uploaded by later today.