After yesterday’s excitement we were ready for a good night’s sleep at a sort of chalet style Super 8 at Sonora, Texas which was mostly accomplished despite Rory’s bear like snoring. We are packed and ready to go by 9 and went for a nice, leisurely traditional breakfast at Lala’s Mexican Restaurant in Sonora…An English traditional breakfast of bacon and eggs. Small place, good service.
Although the SPC upgraded the forecast to a slight risk down the south west edge of Texas this morning there’s a less than 2% tornado risk and things in the near term look somewhat lean with an Omega blocking pattern. This is supposed to be a storm killer, but so was the one from a few weeks ago that still allowed for plenty of chase worthy storms. I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks.
With some time to kill and a chase target still to coalesce we visited the Caverns of Sonora. This is the second time I’ve been (see 2016) but I still thoroughly enjoyed the nearly 2 hour guided tour despite the high humidity and poor air quality down there. Highly recommended though not cheap having a $56 price tag for the two of us.
Lunch was at a quaint little place hidden away in a back street residential area of Ozona, Destiny’s Grill. I couldn’t take the risk of refried beans so had the grilled chicken sandwich. Again, small place, nice service.
Today we are targeting an outflow boundary left over from yesterday’s storms that is sagging southwards meeting moist air from the south. A few small storms in the area appeared and fluffed out, perhaps with the heat of the day we’ll get something later; there is plenty of moisture about. We head north through Eldorado on the US277 in the direction of San Angelo where we will be staying tonight. In an attempt to stave off the tiredness after yesterday I chug a 5 hour energy drink. Rory sips his reasoning that each sip still had 2000% RDA of whatever. We'll do some touristy things in San Angelo and see what, if anything happens.
We arrive in San Angelo and have a wander round the historic quarter in 31c heat and a small park with lily ponds. A couple of storms to our east have gone severe warned but are too far away so we have a punt on one that has bubbled up 30 minutes to our south and head off on US67 and stop at Merzton to have a look at some mammatus and then south on Ranch Road 915 towards Eldorado where a cell has gone severe warned. By the time we get there the lack of any shear is evident as “up it went, down it went” and we punch through the "core" of some light rain. Time to do an about turn at Eldorado and head back north on US277 to San Angelo for a date with a steak at the Texas Roadhouse and hopefully our first beer of the trip. And just as we thought that was that there's a nice display of mammatus on the way.
The SPC talked about storms later this evening so we may get to watch some lightning from the hotel. The Texas Roadhouse New York Strip steak was excellent, the only beer on draught that I knew had "Lite" in the title so we got some Mexican lager. Port and storm. The mashed potato had skin in it, presumably from the potato. Wrong. We stopped off for some Shiner Bock (chasing must do) and checked into the Hawthorne Suites - great room, massive fridge, an American take on the Fez and a WW1 helmet and some reading material...cool.
Total miles: 256
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