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Even though it was mid October, there was a threat of storms that day. After I got done with classes, a severe thunderstorm was issued for the county to our north. I grabbed a chase partner and we left. We didn't really expect to see much that day because it was cold and also because of the time of year. When we got to the storm, it was just producing heavy rain. As we headed back south, we heard the EAS go off on the radio. There was now a tornado warning on a new storm just to our east. The tornado warning had only been issued for a period of 10 minutes when it expired and was extended with the severe thunderstorm warning below. We ended up following behind the storm. We really didn't want to get in front of it, and we couldn't get to the south of it either. When looking at the storm, we could see the hail shaft below.
The storm continued to move to the east north east at a relatively slow rate of speed. As we drove into Marshalltown, we saw this cloud from the east side rising into the sky. At this point we didn't know what it was.
Later on, we ended up south of the storm when it decided to take a turn to the south. We started to get hit with hail, but the largest hail was probably marble sized. We took shelter at a gas station where I could park the car under the canopy for the gas pumps. The storm ended up producing heavy rain and lots of lightning. To view more video captures from this chase, check out the Photo Gallery section for 1998 Video Captures. |
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lightning, dangerous roads, damaging winds, hail, and flying debris which puts
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updated 07/4/99 04:25 PM