So there was plenty over hyped optimism about today's potential storms. Heck, even the SPC had a 5% chance of a tornado!

Despite all the optimism, I was more pessimistic. I had been in downtown Toronto most of the day and it was dreary! I was watching my home weather station and it was a sunny 28C, meanwhile 22km to the south it was 12C and cloudy. The problem was lake moderation from the frigid waters of Lake Erie and Ontario.

This map from Wunderground shows exactly what was going on. You can see the single digit temperature air near the Lake Ontario shoreline, the location of the now stationary warm front and the super warm air to the west.

I was really concerned that nothing of any substance would make it east of Hamilton, but everything west of Woodstock looked like it was washed out by rain. I gambled that the trof pushing east would do something in the small pocket of warm air south of Cambridge and a squall line began to form.

Because moisture was abundant and there was lots of potential for scud and stuff due to pockets of lake moderate air mixing in here and there I thought that maybe a shelf would be possible. Unfortunately this part of the Niagara Escarpment is a terrible area to find clearing! The blossoms on the trees however did look beautiful!

I found one area with a little bit of clearing but was not satisfied it would be good enough.

I eventually found a hill in St. George and parched myself atop it. Then slowly a shelf formed as the squall line drew closer. BINGO! Success!

The shelf began to really begin looking pretty. There were these neat striations all throughout the clouds upper deck.

On radar the growing squall line was quickly intensifying.

By now the shelf cloud was really coming together and looking cool!

While not severe, it sure had a cool mean look to it!

I'm trying to get the St. George watertower in with the squall line.

By now the squall line was almost above my head and closing in quickly. My very brief chase would be coming to an end soon!

Not sure what to make of those turbulent waves near the top right? Cool though.

This was how things were progressing on radar with the strongest part of the line now bearing down on me.

I decided to break out my Fish-eye lens and grab some cool 180 degree images.

This was my last photo. The winds were now picking up and drops of rain were falling but you'd never know with just how wide the fish-eye lens is. Fun little chase for early May in Southern Ontario.