Day 1 - rain wrapped, it's in there somewhere...

We’ve just stopped for a Subway at Salina, Kansas. They’re just the same as the UK with some minor local adaptations such as American cheese; they smell the same too. The problem with Subway is that a 6” is not sufficient to fill you up, but a 12” is just too much food – a 9” would be perfect. I got a 12” with a view to eating only 9” of it which didn’t exactly go to plan. I feel stuffed.

The day started with a rush. I got a txt message at 02:45 from Rory’s cricket coach confirming that his match was on. That would be fine if I was in the UK and it was 08:45 but I’m not and it wasn’t. However it did wake me up to an alert me via a Facebook message from Peter that the 09:00 meet for breakfast was now an 08:00 departure as we needed to be in Nebraska which is a 6 hour drive away.

A quick and unpleasant hotel breakfast and we were off to Wallmart for van snacks. I picked up some granola bars and some other non-meltable bits and bobs (hint: don’t buy chocolate as it can get very messy) and got into the checkout queue from hell. Women at Wallmart turn up with vouchers for everything and just as all that got processed the old guy in front of me who must have been 70 wanted cigarettes and…was asked to provide proof of identity!

With the mandatory stop at Starbucks out of the way we were heading north on the I35 through Witchita and then onto the I135 which turned out was the I35 (close but no cigar), we retraced our steps and we were soon heading north again.

Today is a moderate risk with a 10% tornado probability which is very promising. To labour a point, that means that there is a 10% risk of being within 25 miles of a tornado in the nominated area and time. That’s all fine and dandy, but many other factors come into play that affect your chances of seeing a tornado:

·         Do we have time to get to the target area before initiation?

·         How much daylight will we have?

·         What’s the topography like, are there hills in the way, forests obscuring the view?

·         What are the roads like, any rivers to cross, are there any bridges?

·         How close to a metro area will we be (no chasing around built up areas for us)

·         How many chasers will be out clogging up the roads (usually locals out to “have a look”)

·         Do we make the right decision on which supercell to follow – do we leave one and look for a better one or do we stay?

Well the good news is that all the above factors appear very favourable so all the ingredients for a good day are in place. Day of the week? Let’s see.

14:20 and we have a tornado watch: explosive storm development, long lived supercells, large hail and tornadoes with some strong. Sweet!

Continued heading north in the hope of seeing long tracked tornadoes in Nebraska ending up around Hebron. Travelled up US81 then moved west on US6 - and we had a very intense storm coming our way with chasers reporting multiple tornadoes. On the Spotter map many of these guys were very close to the circulation, from our safe vantage point any tornadoes were rain wrapped and invisible.

We headed east back along US6 with a gust front in pursuit and news of destroyed farm buildings and more of the elusive tornadoes reported. As we retreated the Tornado Intercept Vehicle (TIV) shot past us and Reed Timmer was also there in Dominator 3 who later intercepted a tornado and posted a video. The tornado sirens are going off - that sound makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

A nervy escape up US6 followed now heading north looking for the east turn to safety as we got stuck in some traffic and enveloped in wind and rain with zero visibility - Rear Flank Downdraft or the outer circulation of some hidden monster? We escaped and headed east parallel then joining the I80 interstate west towards Lincoln. The hook echo on radar was the most impressive I'd ever seen.

We stopped on the I80 with a wall cloud in front of us with the tornado sirens blaring. There's nothing visible but there was a tornado in there somewhere but we never got to see it! Great chase but no money shots!

We crossed the Missouri into Iowa (new state!) and checked into the Days Inn in Council Bluffs (which took forever as the computer was off due to the weather). Dinner at Applebees then a good nights sleep.

Day 1 total miles - 550