Day 6 - Going Underground...

I had a terrible night’s sleep last night. Lights out after 12 but kept awake by the air conditioning which sounded like a Soviet era combine harvester in its death throws. I had to turn it off then woke up shortly after and it was hotter than a Turkish bath in a Turkish prison. Next thing it was 6:50 and the alarm went off. Grrr…My series of four paranoid sweeps of the room yielded 2 pairs of socks drying on the towel rail. Paranoia vindicated.

We have a decent enough breakfast at Roxie’s Diner before heading south on US277 to the Sonora Caverns with The Jam playing on the iPhone including the title of today’s entry which was a coincidence. I had strawberry jam this morning which must have been the mental cue. We get there just after 10:15 and the next tour is at 12:00 so we’ve got time to kill/chill. There’s a peacock in the grounds and an elderly giant Pyrenees Mountain dog plus the cutest nest off three baby swallows being fed by their parents.

The caves are very impressive if a bit slippery, hot and very humid (98%) with a carbon dioxide level orders of magnitude higher than the surface so it was like being at 7000 feet altitude. Our group included half a dozen others including Dave who alluded to something about being in tunnels in SE Asia to go with a vets baseball cap. Dave made it out…just. You had to be there man…The trip lasted an hour and a half and the caves are very impressive with all manner of concretions: Stalagmites, stalagmites , things that looked like coral, skinny and fat alike and even a piece that looked just like a rasher of bacon, colours included. Well worth the trip.

Back to the weather. Today the SPC had issued a marginal storm risk in our area with no tornado risk assigned. There was a 2% risk way north east of here and out of range for today. There is an isolated storm tracking north east to our north east. It’s worth a look so we head east on I20 then north on US83 to intercept. It fizzles out before we get there. SPC (from nowhere as far as I can see) has now issued a 2%  tornado risk in the Texas panhandle. These are the uncertainties of storm chasing. We’re too far away to get there for initiation but head north with some alacrity. We’re booked in to the Days Inn in Childress tonight. For the first time since we left Oklahoma City I’m heading for an area I’ve been to before (in 2012).

It’s a very different trip to last year (12 states); looks like we’ll max out at 2 this year, the lowest ever. We’ve criss crossed central Texas for 4 days now. Texas is so big it doesn’t all fit on my Texas roadmap; the Panhandle is AWOL. We head into Ballinger and stop at the Tres Amigos gas station for a quick break before pressing on north.

We pass through Abilne. Severe storms have fired up north of Childress about 100 miles to our north one of which has reported a rotating wall cloud. It’s 6 p.m., will good old US83 and it’s strictly adhered to 75mph limit get us there in time? The storms are tracking south east which helps us out.

Reports come in of multiple accidents on the I40 in the south of Oklahoma caused by hail so severe as to require the attention of a snow plough…

We…plough on…It’s now 6:40 and our storm has topped out at 50,000 feet. It’s still hot outside with the mercury at 90f. Come on!

We make it and see a severe warned storm with strong inflow on our backs, a wall cloud with inflow tail and some and some excellent outflow with laminar structure. We stop a couple of times then head east and watch the storm roll over us with some outstanding lightning. We head north on US6, grab a truck stop sandwich before heading back west on US287 to Childress where we book in to the Super 8. Excellent day with a bonus storm!

Total Miles: 577