Into the sunset...

Chase Day 2

We were up and ready to leave the hotel at 8:30. I could have done with 3 hours more sleep, but as expected I had now adjusted to US time so I’ll take that. I had to put up with Liam’s constant whinging about his “flu” (“put in your blog about how ill I am”) and some outrageous accusations of me keeping him awake by snoring “like a pneumatic drill” all night. As if!

We had some breakfast at ihop and got into the usual debate of how you can possibly have pancakes and maple syrup on the same plate as bacon and eggs. It’s wrong on any level you care to mention!

I swigged some Gaviscon and we headed to Wall-mart for provisions and then to a local mall to buy some souvenirs. I called home using Skype while drinking a chocolate banana smoothie. Weather back home was cold, wet and windy (still which is a shame) and the kids’ cricket was off yet again. Skype was behaving itself for a change and I had an uninterrupted call. One thing that has been sorted out is the coverage of my Orange mobile which had been pitiful on previous trips – I now had a constant signal. Or perhaps it was just Texas having never chased here before.

I like Texas and I’d hoped to be chasing here as storms tend to initiate further south earlier in the season so I’m delighted to be in new territory. The rest of the week looks very promising with potential for us to be much further north east than here in Missouri or Iowa but that remains to be seen; draw a line from Oklahoma City to Yankton, South Dakota and I’ve never been east of that line, my own personal asymptote. Hopefully that will change on this trip but one thing I’ve learnt about storm chasing is nothing is certain. Far from it.

With the forecast not dissimilar to yesterday we headed to a local park for a picnic before setting off east. It looks like a “wait and see how and where things develop day” with a 5% tornado chance in our general area north into western Oklahoma and south west Kansas

We drive north on US 70 to Plainview. It's 16:00 and a tower is going up in front of us.We wait around in Plainview for a while next to Ace Bail Bonds while we decide what to do. We retrace our steps down US 70 towards a cell with a clear over shooting top to our south. The tower is looking good and we stop to take some photos. Camille and Anne contrive to sink into the mud which predictably now lines the back of the SUV where Liam and I will take residence tomorrow...

We continue south and drive through torrential rain and hail which also generates a nice rainbow. We track the storm south and take shelter in Jayton where we take shelter expecting the hail core to pass over us. As it happens is passes to the south and we miss out on the expected 3 inch hail thoug we see some decent anvil crawler bolts of lightning.

We head Norh on US 83 towards Childress and the Comfort Inn for the night. En route we stop to take photos of a spectacular sunset.

Tomorrow looks like being north east of here in Nebraska, but we'll wait and see.

More photos to upload as it's now midnight and the uploader is not working...

Total miles: 316

Running the gauntlet...

Chase Day 1

Today was the official start to the chase week and despite a few drinks last night I was wide awake at 4:00 so did yesterdays blog and checked the Storm Prediction Centre forecast which had a favourable 5% risk.

I was still not feeling well and neither was Liam who had been on God's telephone. Anyway we crawled down for breakfast and I forced down some toast. We the headed to Wall-mart in our big black Chevy Suburban 4x4 to stock up on provisions including some local brewed Gaviscon.

Today's initial target was Amarillo, Texas so we headed off on the 240 mile drive down the I40. Fotunately the Gaviscon was working. I spent most of the morning trying to convince Liam that the money he still owed me meant he could pay it of by paying for all our hotel rooms this week. He finally conceded but with the look of a man who was convinced he was being ripped off. As if!

I'm way to tired to finish this now so it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

We’ve got some time today (Monday) so I’ve got the chance to finish off Sunday’s blog update offline which I can paste into the blog when I get internet access. It can’t be helped if you get behind, but you have to be disciplined and catch up when you can as otherwise the whole thing will fall apart and my readers will lose interest…both of them…

After we wandered around Palo Duro we got back to the business of storm chasing. SPC had downgraded the tornado probability to 2% so we headed south towards Lubbock, Texas.

We arrived in Lubbock and turned east down US 114 where we could see a tower going up at about 18:15. We kept going through some precip and got south west of the storm west of Levelland with a great view of the structure complete with a partial rainbow – a great photo opportunity.

The storm was moving at around 25 mph with a steadily increasing hail core. We retraced our steps and then headed north down a side road. We could see a group chasers parked up which included Roger Hill and Silverlining Tours. As we approached I spotted a brief swirl of a gustnado to our 8 o’clock. We turned round and headed south just as a huge gustnado crossed the road right across our path filled with the local soil. Wow! The whole area now was sucking dirt towards it creating a very eerie sight.

We headed east back on US 114 then north then east across the top of Lubbock. It was starting to get dark so we headed south back to Lubbock. You don’t want to be chasing in the dark as it’s way too dangerous especially as this storm had hinted at rotation. An early night, chill out and get sorted? Nope, as things transpired this was the start of a long night!

Peter booked us into a hotel and we hid unashamedly in a gas station to avoid any damage issues from the hail core. We then set off towards the hotel, and with the storm now heading in that direction we thought we could chill out and watch the lightning from the hotel as per the previous day. It was at that point that the cell became tornado warned so that plan went out of the window; you really don’t want to be in the path of a tor warned storm in the dark as it can really ruin your day.

We headed south east of Lubbock to skirt past the storm with a view to letting it go past so we could return safely to the hotel. Driving was now very difficult in the dark with driving rain. We got ahead of it and dived into a McDonalds for some “food”. We had to move very smartly as this cell had done a 90 degree right turn and was now chasing us! Reports also started coming in of a tornado and baseball size hail smashing the windshields of chasers and bystanders alike.

Peter navigated us out of danger and we ended up on a dirt road to watch the most incredible display of lightning I have ever seen with multiple flashes every second lighting up a fantastic storm structure. I set up the tripod and did my best in the blustery conditions to take some photos – photographing lightning is really demanding with the wind, in the dark and constantly having to review and alter settings by torchlight.

We then packed up and headed north west back towards Lubbock. A section of the road was covered with thick hail with a car in a ditch and visibility reduced by a fog of hail. Great driving by Jock at this point.

We eventually got back to Comfort Suites hotel in Lubbock at 23:50, backed up the photos, started the blog before falling into the equivalent of a medically induced coma.

Total miles 634

Great team building event...

If last night's team bonding is anything to go by this is going to be a great trip. We dined at a Chili place down the road and I loaded up on some decent steak and a weeks supply of broccoli which is just as well bearing in mind the diet awaiting us over the next week. We'd pondered driving south to intercept some storms but our decision to stay put and eat was more than vindicated when a fantastic right moving severe warned storm was delivered straight to our hotel where we were treated to a great display of lightning. Having been on a number of other trips, I felt no compunction to try and photographic it and just chilled out and enjoyed it instead. We then retired to the hotel bar where our team building do was superbly facilitated by Mr Jim Beam...I got to know my fellow travellers who are all great fun. Camille knows more famous people than I've seen storms (seriously, A list Hollywood glitterati) and an officianado of the UK punk scene. I'm sure Al Gore will be impressed that Adam and Liam have been added to that list ;o). Health wise we could be doing better with Liam and Peter struggling with coughs and colds. At least own personal blocking pattern appears to be transitioning to a more dynamic flow pattern... I had a quick look at the SPC one day outlook and it's showing a slight risk for today (and for Monday and Tuesday) with a very acceptable 5% tornado risk in SE Colorado, the Oklahoma Pan Handle and northern Texas. Looks like the Great Game is going to start with a proper chase! Cheers Adam

Made it...finally

Regretting eating the airport fare washed down with beer. Felt air sick for the whole 2 hour flight and needed the comfort of a Delta sick bag. I say comfort as its volume was not in the same league as the amount of stuff that had been consumed. Anyway, we're here and checked in by 23:00 being 05:00 UK time at the Wyndham Gardens. No alarm call required thanks

It's a long way to Oklahoma...!

Well here's a first - a quick blog update using the iPhone. Door to door this jaunt is going to take about 34 hours. Ok, a big chunk of that was the overnight stop in Manchester but it still counts. We set off this morning for terminal 3 at the insistance of the hotel receptionist who convinced us the flights had moved from terminal 2. Good job we left early as you can guess what happened. The flight to Atlanta was uneventful however getting through customs etc. took 1 hour 45 minutes which has turned Liam into Karl Pilkington! No need for it really, well it's at least eaten into the 6 hour wait for the connection to Oklahoma City where we'll arrive after 10 local time. We're currently recharging our batteries courtesy of Mr Samual Adams... There are currently storms in Kansas which we'll obviously miss, but the Storm Prediction Centre 3 day and 4-8 day forecasts look intriguing i.e. Sunday onwards. We'll have a couple of beers tonight and might try Bricktown (see last year) tomorrow before meeting up with everyone for dinner. Cheers Adam

Well, here we go again...

I can't believe it's nearly two years since that amazing day at the end of May 2010 when we witnessed that epic, once in a lifetime tornado in Campo, Colorado. Since the views on this blog have now crawled into four figures you're statisically likely to have already read my account of that day earlier in the blog right? If not check it out NOW!

Campo came on my third trip out to the Plains (2006/2008/2010) and it had a strange effect. Rather than whet the appetite for more adventures in Tornado Alley it kind of did the opposite. How can you ever top that? The itch felt well and truly scratched and the hunger had been satisfied (Sonic Burgers notwithstanding!) - any future visit would surely be a disappointment. I think we all had the same feeling.

So what changed?

Possibly the passage of time. Possibly watching Storm Chasers over and over again as they charge through small towns in the Mid-West and I keep saying "I've been there!". Possibly the technology, being able to watch live streams of chasers as they crawl like ants round radar images of supercells. Possibly the intense, gut wrenching events of Dixie Alley and Joplin last year. The bottom line: once you've been, no matter what, eventually you'll want to go back; the lure is too strong.

I can also blame Peter Wharton our tour leader for this trip. The last three trips have been on organised tours, the first two with Storm Chasing Adventure Tours and the last with Tempest Tours. You can read between the blog lines if you like, but I'll save you the trouble; if you're a first timer I'd recommend Tempest. Better organised and you'll learn more, though SCAT were more fun. There are other reputable tour companies out there of which I hear good things but I have no personal experience of any of them.

So back to Peter. I met Peter who was a guide on my 2008 trip. The organised tours are fine as far as they go but the experience starts to feel a little formulaic. On down days you visit some of the "sights". Now I like the Twister Museum in Wakita, OK as much as the next chaser. But not so much on the second visit, and I really couldn't face the prospect of a third. Plus as a keen amateur photographer I would wince as we passed some photogenic piece of Americana as we meandered between truck stops on a quiet day before terminating at another fast food joint. Peter's philosophy is much more up my street and the temptation was just too much. Check it out here:

http://www.stormgroupchasers.com/

And you can check out the ants here:

http://www.tornadovideos.net/pages/full_screen/

My fellow chasers on this trip are Jock McGinty, our driver from Australia, Liam Smith who I'll be sharing the flight from Blighty, Anne Hassin from Florida and Camille Seaman, a professional photographer from California. Her cool website is here:

http://www.camilleseaman.com/

No Rat (sprogged!) or Dawn (work commitments) this time. Liam and I will be flying out of Manchester on Friday morning via Atlanta, Georgia (I'm claiming that as a new State) to Oklahoma City. No doubt we'll "acclimatise" by visting the Rodeo Club on Friday night (sleep is for wimps) and have a leisurely day out in Bricktown on the Saturday before meeting up with the team on the evening for dinner. Chase day 1 is Sunday with 6 more to follow.

I had a quick look at the 4-8 day forecast from the Storm Prediction Centre here:

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/exper/day4-8/

Looks like there's a blocking pattern in place so the start of the week might be quiet with the good stuff starting on Tuesday or Wednesday. Experience tells me to take anything more than 3 days out with a pinch of salt...

The camera list has been updated as follows:

Nikon D700 c/w 16-35 f4
Nikon D7000 c/w 16-85 f4-5.6 and 70-300 f4-5.6

I've just had some 30"x20" prints done from last time. Even wide open at ISO 1600 in dusky, difficult lighting they look great. No film cameras this time, DLSRS and modern zooms do the business.

I'm amazed I got this blog back up and running as I've been rediculously busy. I fully intended to do a storm spotter qualification and read up some more on forecasting. That'll have to wait for the long flight ;o)

The blog will be updated as and when I get the time and an internet connection. It shouldn't be more than a day out but no promises! Any tornadoes will get priority!

Cheers
Adam