Things started well on day 1. Picking through the photos may
provide a hint of a tornado, but that will need some forensic analysis later. 2010
provided a 5th tornado that wasn’t immediately apparent. Even at
that point I was getting the feeling that we wouldn’t see much else and that
proved to be correct. The weather does its own thing and as I’ve previously
scratched the tornado itch I have a fairly pragmatic (but not pessimistic) view
of things.
The way to look at this year’s chasing is as an epic road trip;
let’s have a look at the list of states racked up:
·
Oklahoma
·
Kansas
·
Nebraska
·
Iowa
·
Illinois
·
Missouri
·
Indiana
·
Kentucky
·
Tennessee
·
Arkansas
·
Texas
·
Louisiana
That’s more states in this trip than all the other tours
combined. Add in South Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Georgia and New
York from previous stateside trips and that racks the total up to 18 states.
That’s a lot. Bear in mind as well that these are MASSIVE states, not the ickle
baby sized ones in the north east that you can tick off going out for a
newspaper.
We did see some good stuff, supercells, some mammatus and
asperatus clouds, a gustnado, lightning and amazing hook echoes; we got swiped
by something in the rain and saw the TIV and Dominator teams. Tornados not
withstanding missing in action were photogenic structures and those beautiful,
backlit, golden highlights at sunset. The tripod and supplementary lenses
stayed in the bag.
We had a good craic, a good laugh and I obliterated my own
personal asymptote being the line between Oklahoma City and Yankton, South
Dakota We visited some cool places, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Nashville,
Dealy Plaza in Dallas, had (mostly) excellent food and, as usual,enjoyed
visiting all the little towns in the
middle of nowhere with their friendly and ever curious residents. I do really
love it over here and will be sad to kiss it goodbye. I still laugh at waking
up in Indi-bloody-ana, but not half as much as Glenn and his “Dude, I’m sooooo
sorry” but that little aside will have to remain on tour. I’m missing the family, so I’m actually
looking forward to going home and using my recuperation day off work to watch
Cleveland Schools Cricket Association under 12s take on their counterparts from
South Yorkshire at Guisborough on Tuesday. Next tour 2016 anyone?
Many thanks to Peter Wharton and Storm Group Chasers for
leading the tour, Glenn for driving and the banter, and to Lisa, Leslie and
David for a really fun time; cheers guys!