After yesterday’s epic day I wake up in the Days Inn in
Paris, Texas. The power flash of last night knocked out the electricity in
Paris and did for the internet. That’s
wrecked Skype, Facebook and more importantly this blog. I’m well and truly off
the grid and behind schedule.
The weather…can’t complain at all. Last week would have been
depressingly desolate, so far this week we are 2 for 2 being on tornado warned
storms. Today we have a long drive
south and west via Dallas with a staging target of Brady where we’ll have a
review which is yet more virgin territory for me. SPC has issued a 2% tornado
risk which is not to be sniffed at with large hail being a major risk. Nice,
that’ll do and the rest of the week has some potential. Looks like me a Rich
picked the right week.
We head out to Nancy’s Café which has 4 and a half starts on
Trip Adviser. My bacon and eggs are decent. Coffee is the order of the day as I
can no longer be bothered to play the tea game.
The joy of being in Texas Is that they are pragmatic about
getting around and 75MPH speed limits are a welcoming sight. We head south on
US24 then south west towards Dallas. Another visit to Dealey Plaza might be on
the cards. A virgin Haliwag brand Texas road map makes an appearance and
today’s low tech trip tracking highlighter pen colour is orange.
The silver lining on a long trip on straight roads is an
opportunity to catch up on the housekeeping. Bashing out this blog in the
Caddy’s bucket seats is like doing it at a desk. Lots of typing to do, many
photos to sort out for a decent blog selection ready for pasting into Blogspot
when we strike Wi-FI.
Malcolm keeps us entertained with his time as a Quantas
pilot, flying the Airbus double deck A380 prototype around France and being in
charge of the inaugural flight from Australia to Los Angeles. He recounts a
story of a very near miss with a Lufthansa plane in the 70’s over Tehran caused
by a major air traffic control fubar.
A stop at Starbucks beckons and a sniff of Wi-Fi. The soil
turns from the bright red of Oklahoma to the black of Texas. We hit roadworks
and are in a jam. Some idiot tries to pull out into traffic aiming for a Darwin
Award. We do indeed stop near Rockwall but the Wi-Fi conspiracy continues as
I’m not paying to get connected for a 5 minute gulp of internet. I decline a
coffee purchase in protest.
My God! A passenger bus! That’s the first none school bus
I’ve seen in 6 trips and by coincidence has a huge tornado on the side. Rich,
PHOTO!!!
We drive through Ray Hubbard Lake, at least on a road that
bisects it and head into Dealey Plaza. Doesn’t feel like 2 years since I was
here. Rich obliges with a comical blog moment as a gust of wind removes both
his hat and sunglasses and they disappear down the street with Rich in hot
pursuit, no doubt having a “bloody marvellous” moment. So enamoured has Rich
been with the trip so far he’s (now somewhat self-consciously) uttering
“Fantastic” at every opportunity. He will from now on be known as “Rich
Fantastic Idle”; that’s not a bad moniker, its real origins will remain secret
to you and me.
We take the usual photos, the grassy knoll, the Book
Repository and the “X” that marks the spot. See 2014 entry for the full
experience. I hadn’t realised that there was a second “X” nearer the Repository
where the first shot was taken (near point blank range), the second being where
the head shot impacted. We continue west and a have a Subway before heading
south on US 281.
CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy) by the dryline
is up to 4500 JoulesKG-1 and dew points at 74f. I can’t ever
remember seeing parameters like that when I’ve been over here. El Reno had CAPE
at 5500 according to Peter. There is a tremendous amount of energy in the
atmosphere; unsurprising that the main threat today is giant hail and general
precipitation.
We take a break at Comanche and visit Dairy Queen. A small
chocolate shake has 540 kcal and a large 940. I have a medium which is
unspecified…550? And guess what? No Wi-Fi. Grrr…
Looking to the west there are some turkey towers going up
but no sign of sustained updrafts. We press on south. A storm has popped up
north of Brady (good call) and we’re under a severe thunderstorm watch. We’re
about to engage chase mode, it’s just after 3 and we hit some precip.
A number of severe warned cells form moving north east. We
track them and are treated to some CG lightning and associated thunder claps.
Our nearest storm is now at 41,000 feet and we keep stopping to avoid the hail
core. There’s 2” hail in there somewhere, we get hit by some small stuff enough
to make a characteristic ping when it hits the Caddy. We end up back in
Comanche which looks a bit different that it did a couple of hours ago with the
through road flowing like a river.
We’ve been retracing our steps for some time now, driving
through incessant rain. The temperature has dropped from 96f to 67f. It’s a bit
different from yesterday. Some light at the end of the tunnel; a cell to our
south is right moving and has a 78 kt TVS marker i.e. some rotation. We’ll try
and get in front of it.
We get to the intersection of US84 and let our storm roll over
us. There’s some really good CGs, but we’re done and retrace our steps north
through yet more heavy rain and up to to Hico for dinner at the
internetless Koffee Kup which is under
mammatus clouds. The chicken nachos proved a meal too far. We continue north to
Mineral Wells accompanied by spectacular lightning to stay in Peter’s favourite
chasing hotel , the Days Inn. Hopefully it’ll have some Wi-Fi…and we do! Hours
of work to get up to date :o(
Total miles: 535
Photos to follow
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