All the ingredients are there for discrete supercells and tornadoes. Let's see how mother nature does the cooking...we're clearly heading south west.
So we’re up and running and heading west on the I40 and will
head south at some point. There’s an area that wasn’t stirred up by yesterday’s
storms and it’s progged for moist warm air later today. Initiation will
hopefully be during late afternoon.
A quick visit to Walmart for supplies and I try and take
advantage of the McDonalds Wi-Fi to Skype home. The stereotype of the pictures
of the burgers not matching up to actuality (Falling Down anyone?) is mimicked
by the Wi-Fi: promises much and doesn’t deliver. The visit to Starbucks this
morning helped with yesterday’s 10% day. 10% DNL (Do Not Resuscitate) beer that
is…Starbucks Wi-Fi is immaculate and a quick call to a hassled wife trying to
get kids to cricket ensues. Welcome to my world…
As we set off we get a reminder of where we are as a B1
heavy bomber soars above us followed by a KC-135 radar plane; impressive pieces
of kit.
Rich and I are in the back seats of the Esplanade today.
They’re not much roomier than a Suburban but sufficiently so to make a
difference. Sure enough we head south on US 270 east. I spend time sorting
through a few of yesterday’s photos to find some better ones for the Day 1 blog
entry.
We head to Ada for a stop then continue south to Durant
where we have our picnic lunch in what goes for a park. It’s now 3 o’clock and
we’re now under a tornado watch; the coolness of the park has now been replaced
by moist warm air. We sit and wait, looks like towers are starting to form in
the distance to our west.
And that’s as far as the blog got today as the fun really
started at that point so what follows is my recollection from the next day and
there’s lots to remember; hopefully I’ll not miss anything out
Update: This took
until the end of day 5 to write up as there’s been so much happening.
The storm to our west becomes severe warned towering to
46,000 feet; we moved to an overpass on
the US70 which gave us a great vantage point – perfect timing as it was now
tornado warned. Watching the storm Valerie and Aiden’s hair suddenly started to
stand on end…our “canaries” gave us as a fright and we all piled into the
Esplanade and the safety of its Faraday cage. Being struck by lightning is my
no. 1 scary thought. The storm now had an ominous structure. We get news that a storm 90 minutes to our north
west had randomly sucked in an outflow boundary and exploded putting down a
tornado that we later found had sadly caused a fatality.
The National Weather Service automatically sends messages to
mobile phones in warned areas. All our phones are constantly going off as
tornado and flash flood warnings come in. They make you jump.
We left our vantage point and dropped south on SR78 towards
Albany. The excitement in the SUV was palpable. We were on an A list chase –
stop, photograph, move, repeat, the huge Esplanade occasionally twitching on
the wet roads. We headed towards
Bokchito and passed a serious car crash with emergency services in attendance,
presumably weather related. As we approached Bokchito hailstones were apparent
on the roadside getting larger as we advanced until they were tennis ball
sized. The damage they had done was obvious, trees battered, a hole in the roof
of a house now covered by a tarpaulin and the windscreens of several parked
trucks smashed. We stop and collect some for photos. No one told me I had
horrendous “hat hair” as I posed for a quick photo; I can’t but help taking a
particularly big example as a souvenier. Someone must have nicked it as it was nowhere
to be seen in the morning…
There was a line of about 5 tornado warned storms. We had to
keep stopping to wait for hail cores to pass in front of us not wishing to end
up with a chase ending smashed vehicle.
Our storm was weakening; we stopped momentarily by a tornado siren, the
sheer noise and context makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. We
moved off to get one of the other tornado warned storms factoring in the Red
River Texas boundary which separated us from the most southerly storm; you need
a bridge for that. We stopped at an ultra grotty truck stop selling all manner
of second hand junk including, ironically, an anvil. I won’t get that on my carry-on
luggage…
We headed south through rain down SR109 before catching the
sunset. The skies were full of mammatus and at this time in the evening there
is hardly a more impressive sight. The 16-35mm lens comes into its own. I know
I have a pile of “keepers”.
We head towards Paris, Texas and reports of more funnels and
a tornado come in. We see green power flashes as some beast in the darkness
puts paid to power lines.
Finally we reach Paris, Texas and try to check into the Days
Inn. The power flashes had knocked out all the electricity and the hotel’s
systems had not yet recovered making check in a non-starter so we trudged off
to Dairy Queen which is just about open. The roads are torrents of water and these temporary rivers look like they’ll
flow forever there’s been so much rain. A smidgeon of Wi-Fi allows for a quick
Facebook update
We eventually get checked in to the hotel but the internet
is down. My room is humongous. The
various camera, phone and laptop batteries get charged and the photos get
dumped onto my portable hard drive. The lack of Wi-Fi is actually a Godsend as
my indenture to the blog gets some relief; I’m shattered, it’s nearly midnight
and we’re leaving for south west Texas at 7 a.m. tomorrow. I’ll right it up in
the Caddy which didn’t happen. FANTASTIC DAY. Bed.
Total miles: 331
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