Day1a - under starter's orders...

There was a spectacularly photogenic tornado in Wray, north eastern Colorado yesterday evening with the world's supply of photos and videos posted including a very cool 360 degree video by Reed Timmer.  We were in our hotel in OKC resting up and getting ready to chase. The hotel was filling up with a pile of British "holiday" makers out on their first storm chasing trip. How things have changed in 10 years, glad I'm not on one of these commercial tours. Well, good to luck them, they've ponied up the money and looking to make some hay.

I'm still feeling dull headed (no really) but that should pass by tomorrow. I'm wide awake at 5a.m. so chuck a coffee down, check the SPC (Storm Prediction Centre) outlook, chuck something on facebook and fire up the laptop.

I read an interesting article about early May on the Plains being either feast or famine. If famine then not seeing (for good reasons) last night's tornado could prove irksome. Good thing it's looking like feast!

The SPC is showing enhanced risk today (central Kansas, NW Oklahoma), enhanced risk tomorrow (eastern Oklahoma, NE Texas, SW Missouri, western and central Arkansas) and severe for Wednesday (Missouri, western Illinois). Today has a 10% tornado risk (woohoo!) though there is some hand wringing about moisture levels and that a strong capping inversion may come into play...but come on, three severe days out of four at the start of the tour,  seriously you couldn't wish for better.

We'll be reviewing today's target shortly (after ingesting a whole pile of porcine products) , then no doubt we'll get a Starbucks and load up with lunch and van snacks at the ever fun Wall-Mart.

I did see something last night of predictions of very severe weather over the OKC metro area this evening. With a chaser convergence likely, loads of newbies out on tours and no doubt plenty of Yahoos "out for a look" the major risk today is traffic with El Reno from 2013 in the back of everyone's minds.

I got a first look at our pimped ride last night. A black 6.2 litre V8 Cadillac Esplanade ESV with bucket seats. That'll do nicely thanks Peter ;o)

Photos in order: Caddy, four day outlook, today's tornado risk, tomorrow's enhanced storm risk, Wednesday's severe outlook.

We'll see what happens. Stay tuned.