As I type up the blog the ever useful iPhone tells me it's “Liane Cotterill's wedding anniversary”. Ooops! I'd better ring her later, using Skype in the unlikely event I can find a wifi signal. With consummate spousal timing she texts me to remind me of what day it is. It's really down to a lack of forward planning on my part; I should NEVER have got married during tornado season as this is the 3rd anniversary I've missed. I'm starting to realise I can't blame Ratty for everything and must take my share of the responsibility. But hang on, he was my best man and he didn't think to warn me? Normal service is resumed!
At 12:00 we had our induction with Brian Morganti which was very thorough and he also took us through some forecasting; this would be a standard start to each chase day which was something I was glad to see. We also met our drivers, Tank and Woody and the balance of the guests, a Spanish couple and seven Americans.
Despite my earlier reservations about an unpromising week Brian is quite optimistic. Today, Monday and Tuesday all show a slight risk of severe weather all within reasonable distance of our current location, in Oklahoma and north into Kansas. "Slight Risk" would appear to imply "not much luck" but actually its a lot better than that. Storms that did fire would be slow moving, easier to photograph and be more photogenic. There would also be fewer chasers out clogging up the roads. Today would be a bonus chase day; in previous tours day 1 was induction followed by a leisurely dinner.
By early afternoon we were on the road with a chase target of Enid, just north of Oklahoma City.We grab a disgusting truck stop sandwich, and our route takes us up to the Kansas border, east towards the I35 then back through Enid for "dinner" at Braums (burger and ice cream joint) and onto Woodward to the LaQuinta Hotel. The storms were slow and easy to photograph as promised drifting north east then south east at 5mph.
Although wind sheer was too low to form supercells, we did see some rotation, some decent lightning and plenty of mammatus clouds, the best I have seen, hanging under the anvil like giant furry bubblewrap. I got some decent photos and Ratty snapped a few as well although he has some issues (where's the long list..?) with horizons i.e. consistently wonky. It will help figure out who took what when I get home.
By some lucky chance I managed to get a snap of some daytime lightning using a 2 second exposure. We were also treated to an excellent gustnado which looks even better now that I've fixed the horizon...
Total miles: 338
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