After yesterday's heat of battle we have revised our tornado count to five. Quite often you can stare at something and not realise until the next day after cross referencing other chasers photos that you were actually looking at a tornado. All that dust from yesterday added a layer of confusion.
This morning we're on the road at 08:00. Breakfast is at the Pancake House at Lubbock which is a bit on the crispy side.
Today's SPC forecast is not dissimilar to yesterday's; a bimodal enhanced risk with a 5% tornado risk. As we need to be back in Denver tonight we're targeting the northern area. The SPC narrative states "very large hail, damaging winds and a tornado threat is anticipated". We head north on I27 towards Amarillo.
We stop at Amarillo for a break and provisions including a five hour energy drink...We continue north on Highway 287 through Gluck and Chunky who sound like characters from Grange Hill or possibly Harry Potter. The five hour energy drink kicks in 😎. We continue north with another stop at Stratford.
We leave Texas for the last time and cross into the Oklahoma Panhandle…up Donald J Trump Highway under grey skies then into Colorado with blue skies and cumulous clouds. We have our pilgrimage through Campo and memories of the 2010 tornadoes. Lunch is at the Longhorn Steakhouse Cafe; I have the Chef's Salad...
At 13:50 we're under a tornado watch. We continue north on Highway 385 to Lamar where Alex and I spent a lot of time last year then onto Highway 287 towards Eads. A couple of severe warned storms have appeared to our north west. We arrive at Eads and it's 14:50 and 23c.
We have a leg stretcher at Kit Carson, the restaurant is now shut down. There's a new storm to our north west to we head up towards Limon to have look. We arrive at Limon in the rain, storms all around us. We head south on Highway 71.
As we go from south from Limon the small cell we’re heading through had a significant inflow tail and it goes severe warned with “tornado possible”. Rory spots rotation and there are clear dust swirls on the ground. Tornado surely? We head back into Limon then east then south east on Highway 287. As we near Hugo there’s hail on the roadside.
We continue a south east and are rewarded with an intense rainbow. The storm directly to our east falls apart but the two further east are now tornado warned. We’ll head to Cheyenne Wells to get in a better position; the road network is not the best which is hampering our efforts.
It’s all a big rainy mess. It’s 17:45 and we call it.
All is not lost as Rory’s eagle eyes did indeed spot a tornado and he captured it nicely; a quick and dirty conversion in photoshop and it’s extremely clear, 16:36 Mountain time south of Limon Colorado. Shot Ror!!!
We head west in the I70 to our hotel in Denver with a Texas Roadhouse Steak for dinner and Rory visits a liquor store for beers.
Total miles: TBC
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