recent events

May 16, 2012: Wed - Day 19 - T3E D2 - No Storms: High-based thunderstorms coming off the higher terrain somewhere along the I-25 corridor appeared to be our best chance for seeing a storm today, but a serious lack of moisture and the late arrival of an upper wave resulted in no storm activity. I measured dew points in the low 20's as we watched small cumulus towers bubble up and then quickly turn to hanging tendrils of virga during the late afternoon. The day wasn't a total loss though as our photo group had plenty of opportunities to photograph numerous ghost, or near ghost towns while we were waiting for something to happen. Our first stop of the day was Mount Dora in New Mexico...a little west of Clayton.

Next up was a brief stop in the tiny village of Folsom just south of the Colorado border.

Our final stop, and a lengthy one at that, was in the town of Model, Colorado. Although most of homes are abandoned and in various states of decay there are still 17 families living in or nearby this small hamlet. Trinidad, CO 267m

May 15, 2012: Tue - Day 18 - T3E D1 - Position Day : We blew off the idea of traveling another 4-5 hours deeper south into the tip of Texas for the prospects of marginally severe storms. Models continued to indicate sever storms would be possible later in the weak somewhere in the central to northern plains region and until then we'd likely find some high-based orographically induced thunderstorm activity coming off the front range. Either way, that meant going north. We had some very pretty skies for the first few hours of our northward journey and stopped at one point to film a pileus cap forming on top of a TCu.

By the time we reached the southern Texas Panhandle the clouds thinned out and the sky became severe clear. We were having a hard time finding some old houses to explore and film on the main highways but finally found what we were looking for along a lesser traveled road east of Channing, TX. An old farmstead offered plenty to keep our cameras busy right up until sunset. Dumas, TX 528m

May 14, 2012: Mon - Day 17 - T3E Arrival Day - Lightning Del Rio TX : I decided our best chance for seeing any type of storm today would be to head south as far as we could into Texas where there was still adequate moisture and instability. Given the overall slow weather pattern for severe and a relatively short tour I wanted to maximize every chance we had at seeing a storm. My plan was to get ahead of any southeastward moving MCS, possible shelf cloud or rogue storm near SJT and then continue south for perhaps a nice light show near Del Rio from storms coming out of Mexico. The plan worked, sort of. The bests storms and MCS activity occurred earlier in the day and much farther to our west and all we were left with was a bunch of crud with an occasional CG. However as we entered Del Rio we had a great view of a bunch of CG activity from a high point north of town! The problem was it was raining heavily and we had no luck at finding a good spot to park and watch the show. We could just barely see the sun setting so I figured we might get lucky and have some drier air moving in soon. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and by the time we had finished the rain let up a bit. We quickly dashed a little east of town to a high spot to take in the lightning show to our east. There were some beautiful CG's and crawlers at first but as time went by the activity diminished and moved farther away. Still, we were able to get a few keepers and a very colorful low cloud added to the drama, although it did obscure a lot of the best lightning. Del Rio, TX 543m

May 13, 2012: Sun - Day 16 - T2 Departure / Van Prep Day: A day to clean up and prepare the vans and gear for the next tour, as well as rest up a bit. At least we wouldn't be missing a big severe weather outbreak for a change while changing over tours. OKC

May 12, 2012: Sat - Day 15 - T2 D10 Final - No Storms - Travel Day: Unfortunately, there was no threat of severe storms today nor even a reachable area of general thunder for us to chase. On our way back to OKC we took a side-journey to visit Mt Scott near Lawton, OK. We hung out there for awhile before driving the final hour and a half back to OKC and then had a leisurely dinner near the hotel. It was nice not to have to rush around eating fast food for a change. Although no tornadoes were observed by this tour, we did have a couple of excellent Supercell Days and only experienced three days without seeing any storms! 403 miles driven today which brought the total for this tour to 5316 miles.

May 11, 2012: Fri - Day 14 - T2 D9 Pretty Convection - San Antonio to Austin TX: There wasn't a huge risk of severe storms today, but we did have a decent chance at seeing some storm activity in the vicinity of the San Antonio area or farther east. We drifted in that direction, had our windshield smashed by a large airborne rock, and then had lunch in Beeville. We then continued north towards some weak radar returns to the north of SAT and started to see Towering Cu as we approached New Braunfels. We headed north on highway 281 to get our first look at some towers off to our north, but finding a place to park with good visibility was quite a challenge. The following image was looking to the northeast, somewhere near Blanco I believe.

We then turned our attention to a larger updraft forming just to our northwest and again struggled to find a high point with a good view. A few miles to our north we were able to get a good westward view of the updraft base and wall cloud area, and then later found another viewpoint looking to our northwest to see a well contrasted rain foot.

We continued north and then east to follow this convection and were soon treated to a full arch rainbow! The views to our east and southeast were nice as the low sun angle illuminated the numerous cloud towers against a bright blue sky.

Again we continued north after some new and stronger looking cells and made our final photo-op a few miles to the northwest of Austin. The traffic was horrible and once again it was nearly impossible to find a good viewpoint that was safe from traffic. We eventually found a quiet area on a hilltop in an area that was under construction for new homes. The first two images are looking to our NNE at a cell we had previously encountered, and the last image was looking south at a briefly severe-warned cell to the north of San Antonio. When these three images were taken they were the only two significant radar returns within a 120 mile radius. Temple, TX - 435m

May 10, 2012: Thu - Day 13 - T2 D8 Supercells - Encinal / Laredo, TX: There were two south Texas plays for today, one would be to wait for a second round of severe storms coming in from Mexico in the Del Rio to Eagle Pass area later in the day, and the other was to get south of the boundary and ongoing tornado warned storms farther to our south and northeast of Laredo. We had lunch in Del Rio and then met up with Bill Reid and crew to discuss our options. At first it appeared the best bet was to wait for what could be a good show later on, but low clouds and ongoing convection were really messing up our area for later in the day. Those storms to our south continued to form in the same general area prompting severe and tornado warnings. It wasn't long before we headed south. We met up with boundary south of Carrizo Springs and watched TCu forming overhead and to our east. We plotted a course east along highway 44 and but the updrafts started to look weak and it appeared we were chasing a skinny tail end of the convection. Meanwhile a couple of impressive supercells had formed about 100 miles to our west over Mexico, and those were likely the storms of the day...or so we hoped. We headed back west on highway 44 and then a little south of Encinal to wait for a large cell that was moving in our direction. A smaller storm headed north and was ingested into our cell, and eventually we had one big storm that at one point had a nice hook echo and tight couplet showing up on GRLevel radar. By this time new storms had also formed back to our east, right about at the point we had turned around an hour ago and these too became tornado warned. First image below is looking west, second image is looking east.

We watched suspicious lowerings beneath our approaching storm to the west but it was just too far away to see what was really going on. The storm was moving to the right and we had to drop south to avoid the approaching core coming in from the north. We blasted down highway 83 to the interstate leading to Laredo and made a few quick photo stops along the way.

After looping to the east around Laredo we headed northeast via highway 59 towards Freer. The storm we were on was now well to our north but it didn't take us to long to catch up to the core which would be crossing the highway in front of us. Other than some interesting cloud formations along the way there wasn't a whole lot to see and it was now after sunset. Bill headed east with his group and I headed back west in hopes of seeing some late day updrafts and lightning from behind the storms. But first a new cell formed immediately to our west and gave us a bit of nickel size hail, but mostly heavy wind swept rain. We stopped about 10 miles east of Laredo to see the towers back to our east, but low clouds quickly filled in and blocked our view. We headed a little closer to town and were able to watch some distant CG's from new storms off to our southwest. The view east was rather nice as well with the distant cloud towers being illuminated by lightning beneath a star filled sky. No tornado but not a bad day chasing storms. Laredo, TX 516m

May 9, 2012: Wed - Day 12 - T2 D7 Southern NM -West TX Storms: A weak upslope was again in play today, but with no clear focusing mechanism storms would once again be slow moving and weak. We hung out at the White Sand Dunes National Monument until noon time and then headed south towards some weak storms that were drifting north. It wasn't long before large anvil canopies blanketed the sky and blocked our view of any towering updrafts. We more or less continued south and east towards our Day 2 target but didn't see much storm activity other than a few weak storms and a few lightning bolts along the way. At least the scenic terrain took away some of the boredom. Fort Stockton, TX 413m

May 8, 2012: Tue - Day 11 - T2 D6 Southern NM Storms: The upslope play along the higher terrain in far west Texas and southern New Mexico seemed our best bet for seeing a severe storm today. By the time we reached El Paso the murky skies gave way to nice blue skies with building cumulus clouds and a few storms had already developed farther west and northwest in NM.

We headed towards a more isolated cell near Deming, NM that was prompting severe warnings. We got a glimpse or two of this storm on our way west, but anvils from new storms to the south began to obscure our view. We cut north and east out of Deming and stopped on occasion near Nutt to take in a few mildly interesting stormscapes before continuing our journey northeast towards the only nearby cell that was marginally severe.

As we followed our storm north we came across several areas that were covered with hail, which gave a winter-like scene to the normally parched terrain. We stopped in the town of Hatch to take a closer look at the hail that had accumulated shortly before our arrival. Folks were out with there shovels clearing their walks as though they were just hit by a snowstorm.

By now the storms had merged into a big messy rainstorm, and other than an occasional lightning bolt there wasn't much else to see...it was time to call it a day. Alamogordo, NM 512m

May 7, 2012: Mon - Day 10 - T2 D5 West Texas Storms: We arrived at my target area in Big Lake by noon and storms were already initiating all around us...waaay too early! We grabbed a bite to eat and tried to figure out the best play for this early hour. The strongest cell was just off to our east so we headed in that direction. Numerous other storms were forming and merging and we soon had a large complex of storms heading towards San Angelo. Roads options were poor and the only quick way to stay with this storm was a gravel/dirt road that meandered about 12 miles to the northeast to the town of Knickerbocker. The main rain core was off to our north, but a small cell formed behind us and began pelting us with moderate rain. We were doing okay until we came to a narrow dip in the road that led thru a stream. I couldn't tell how deep it was, so I waded across to find out---I didn't want to turn around and deal with a slick and muddy roadway. Fortunately the water was just deep enough to allow the van to cross safely so I waved Tank to come on thru. We then turned south to have a look at the storm that was nipping at our heals and could see plenty of CG activity, but not much else. Heading west towards storms that might form later looked like the best option at this point, and a new Mesoscale Discussion for that area convinced me to get moving about 150 miles to our northwest. Several good looking cells formed farther north in NM, and one promising one was moving east just south of the NM border. This one became our target storm and after an hour we had a visual, and it didn't look all that good. We continued on and intercepted the high-based decaying cell a few miles north of Pecos, TX.

We met up with Bill Reid and his crew at this point and we didn't have a whole lot of options as to what to do next. Some new towering Cu went up just to our south, so we monitored those while driving east thru Mentone and then on to Kermit. Bill eventually took his group north towards a right moving cell about 60 miles away and I took my group south towards Fort Stockton in hopes of getting a light show from storms that had formed to our west and southwest. We had a little lightning off to our west after we arrived at our hotel, but nothing worth going after. We at least saw storms today, but hardly worth the effort given all the driving. Fort Stockton 743m.

May 6, 2012: Sun - Day 9 - T2 D4 Positioning Day South: A dive south to get ahead of the surging cold front that was now sweeping across the central plains. I decided to blow off the risk of severe storms in southeastern Kansas in favor of positioning for what looks to be higher quality and more isolated storms much farther south in southwest Texas on Day 2. We drove from Kearney, Nebraska south to Childress, Texas and enjoyed a nice steak dinner and an early evening for a change. CDS - 521m

May 5, 2012: Sat - Day 8 - T2 D3 Northeast to Central Nebraska Bustola: An agonizing day watching what could have been my best day out here thus far go down the tubes. We started out in perfect position in O'Neill, NE under foggy conditions with light drizzle. By early afternoon there was no change due to the cool outflow boundary to our north winning out over the warm southeasterly flow from the south. We opted to head a bit south and east to get into sunny skies below the warm front that had pushed into far northeastern Nebraska. We waited and then we waited some more. Nothing but a few anemic Cu fields developed over our target region. By 6pm a new Cu field had developed about an hour or so to our southwest and I somewhat reluctantly gave up on our area seeing a storm before nightfall. Unfortunately the southern play had issues as well and the towers collapsed and no storms had formed within the tornado watch box by 9pm CDT. Tomorrow we need to decide on playing the surging cold front in far Eastern Kansas or head for possible supercells in far southwest Texas. Kearney, NE 291m

May 4, 2012: Fri - Day 7 - T2 D2 - Supercells - Central Nebraska: My original target near Bassett wasn't a bad idea, but clouds associated with elevated convection in SD persisted over the area until early afternoon. We had lunch in O'Neill then headed west towards some developing convection near Bassett. I let it pass to our east hoping for better stuff to form to our west, but it soon became apparent that this cell would likely become severe. Another storm had formed to its east and was already severe warned. It was only 2pm, so I had to decide to head after these storms as they could become the main show, or hang tough until later in the day in hopes of better and more isolated storms developing. I choose the former option figuring it wouldn't be too difficult to head back west later for any eastward moving storms. We were able to get south and ahead of this storm near the Niobrara River crossing into SD, but the storm was not all that interesting and was ingesting cool regurgitated ENE winds. A call from Martin Lisius alerted me to a developing Cu field along an outflow boundary near Ord and that area had SE surface winds. We blasted back thru O'Neill and then south on 281 in hopes of getting in front of a tornado warned storm near Burwell. My best route south to this storm would put me right into the core, so I opted to approach from the east. Fortunately, a new storm intensified in front of the now weakening Burwell storm and we had a perfect approach via highway 91 thru Ericson. We had quite a show for about 20 minutes as the storm tried its best to tornado with a tightened wall cloud, RFD clear slot, and several small funnel clouds.

We then headed east and south with this storm for awhile but it had given us its best. New storms were forming back to our west again near Burwell and one in particular looked promising. This became our next target storm, but as we again approached via highway 91 thru Ericson the storm began to turn hard southeast. So, back east to 281 and then south far enough to view this approaching storm. We stopped near Greeley for our first good look of the still somewhat distant structure.

We then continued south on 281 and had a great view of the approaching updraft structure off to our west. We stopped again near the intersection of 281 and 22 south of Greeley for some closer views, and then found a high spot a little farther east to get our final views as the storm drifted to our southeast at sunset. We enjoyed a bit of lightning from this storm and others on our way back north to O'Neill. Overall a very good day for supercell structure! O'Neill 541m

May 3, 2012: Thu - Day 6 - T2 D1 - Severe Storms South Central Nebraska: Today's target was not well defined as there simply was no clear cut focusing mechanism for where storms might initiate and quickly become severe. I considered northwest Missouri somewhere along highway 36 for late day storms but that area would put us farther away from the Day 2's risk area. I drifted south from Columbus taking our time with a Wal-Mart stop and a relaxed lunch soon thereafter. We then continued south towards Beatrice in hopes of storms forming to our west, and that is exactly what happened. Two storms initiated south of Holdrege about 100 miles to our west and we cautiously proceeded west on highway 136 in case something bigger went up back to our east. These storms formed near Holdrege along a trough axis and an area of weak converging winds could be seen funneling into the storms on surface maps. At about the same time we committed to these storms a mesoscale discussion was issued for our area with these storms being on the western edge of that discussion. Reports of up to 4" hail were included in the warnings and we could see the stout updrafts from about 30 miles away. Unfortunately by the time we arrived on the scene just south of Franklin, NE both storms had weakened and soon died a most unflattering death. New towers then beckoned off to our north.

While heading north from Franklin a stout tower soon exploded into a full fledged Cb! This cell and another one to its northeast sat just north of the Grand Island area. When I say sat, that is exactly what they did as though they were waiting for us. In fact, the storms began to back build a bit and the warnings indicated they were moving 10mph to the WEST! We stopped just north of Wood River for a photo op.

The sun was getting low and I opted to get a little closer in hopes of getting some dramatic sunset colors illuminating the updraft tower. Low clouds began streaming in from the south and we had to drive west about 10 miles in order to get some views of the tower which was nearly overhead at this point. As the sun set the skies opened up a bit and we were able to view the entire updraft, but by this time it had weakened considerable. Still, the views were nice and it was a good way to end a day...especially since they wasn't much else happening within a couple hundred miles. Central City, NE 409m.

May 2, 2012: Wed - Day 5 - T2 Orientation Day - Supercells E-Central Nebraska: The chase strategy for today was relatively simple---get north as fast as possible after picking up the new group for the best chance of seeing a severe storm in the slight/moderate risk area along and north of the Kansas/Nebraska border. Fortunately, warm air aloft would suppress thunderstorm development until late in the day. I figured by the time we reached Nebraska we would likely have a target storm in view. At about 7pm CDT we stopped in York and watched some towers go up to our west and northwest before continuing north. We stopped again about 20 minutes later to watch three strengthening storms to our west, and the center one was now severe warned.

We continued north on 81 and cut west towards the storms on highway 92. We had a good view of the storms along the way and could see the base of the now severe-warned and dominant storm to our northwest from a point a little east of Archer, NE. A smallish wall cloud soon become a rather large and blocky as it extended about two-thirds of the way to the ground. At the same time we could see an impressive supercell about 60 miles to our south in Kansas that had a severe warning.

We then continued north to get closer to storm's base and stopped again to watch for any signs of rotation. The storm was obviously rotating, but we could not see any rotation in any of the wall clouds that developed. By this time it was getting dark (8:30 pm CDT) so we headed northeast with this cell in hopes of getting some lightning. Another storm to our south put on a nice, but very brief display as the northern storm fizzled. We got into Columbus at 10 pm to grab a bite to eat before calling it a day. Overall, not a bad day as things turned out pretty much as I expected. Columbus, NE 500m

May 1, 2012: Tue - Day 4 - Travel/Prep Day - OKC: Thankfully, the atmosphere was capped on this day and no storms were missed while traveling to OKC in preparation for the start of Tour 2. Oklahoma City - 150mi