Day 5 - Rugby anyone..?

Will finish this off tomorrow - great days chasing - 17 hour day and just arrived at the hotel at 1:00 a.m. and beyond knackered.

After another terrible night’s sleep we’re off early north (no surprise there) for breakfast at Perkins Restaurant at Fort Pierre. Rummaging in my case I find my rugby club’s polo shirt for today’s attire and, coincidentally we’re headed for Rugby, North Dakota targeting a 5% tornado risk and hoping for a “proper” chase day. With breakfast done we’re back on it heading north on the good ol’ US 83.

We stop at Selby for provisions and for the first time on this tour we have hot moist air carried on a decent wind on our backs. We pass into North Dakota which I claim as my 19^th state with dew points in the mid 60s and the outside air temperature at 92f. All looking promising, everything feels lovely and juicy…

By mid-afternoon we arrive in Rugby and have a late lunch at Subway compromising with a foot long sandwich, half to eat in and half to go. There are other chasers in the Subway, no doubt desperate for a weather fix after the long ridge lay off. The other side of the road has a stone cairn declaring Rugby to be the geographical centre of North America. Photo time, must put it on the club website when I get home.

We wait around at a gas station as storms start to bubble up in the target area to our west. There are lots of chasers waiting around including Josh Wurman in DOW 8 (Doppler on Wheels). I’m sure I spot Karen Kosiba as well.

We head off to Towner for our first storm which wasn’t that explosive so target a new, more isolated cell south west of McClusky down US52 and the most southerly available which quickly becomes severe warned  only for us to be stopped by roadworks and a 15 minute delay. Reed Timmer and Dominator 3 is in front of us, does a u-turn , floors it and roars off back whence he’d come. I keep my old mukka Liam up to date with proceedings back in the UK.

We arrive at Fessendon for a rapid pit stop then head west towards Hurdsfield to get in front of the storm with options to drop south or east with chase mode firmly engaged. Now in the perfect place, we drop south at Hurdsfield on SR3 and get out with cameras in hand and a feeling of expectation. Cloud 9 tours with Charles Edwards are a little further south but most other chasers were elsewhere. A strong blast of warm, moist air was on our backs screaming in to fuel our storm. The storm is quite high based with a wall cloud and a pronounced hook echo on radar. With lots of CG lightning in our vicinity it was slightly unnerving but worth the small risk to see huge dust swirls on the ground under the wall cloud and chaotic turbulence and rotation directly above us with the hail core close by. It felt like we were right under it all. Very dramatic and it looked like it was about to produce a tornado right in front of us. Lightning was all around us and with dust and rain starting to obscure our view we headed further south.

Hook echoes and a small amount of obvious rotation came and went but with a long drive to our hotel (well after 7 p.m. at this point) and no immediate prospect of a tornado we dropped further south to pick up the I94 interstate at Medina and blasted east squeezing through a tight spot between two storms being battered by strong winds, rain and half inch hail with a couple of larger twangs on the Suburban.

The line of storms was moving east at a decent lick, around 45 mph and we eventually blasted through Jamestown, finally in front of it all. We pulled off at exit 296 to watch the setting sun and lightning from the overpass. Stunningly beautiful but proving very hard to get on top off despite my best efforts, lots of fiddling with camera settings and work to do in Photoshop to get a passing resemblance of what was in front of us. Here’s hoping.

We set off again and with the sun going down, falling though the precipitation free base and darkness not far away. I weak wall cloud was visible and I joked that this would be the perfect time to see a tornado, backlit by the sun still marvelling at the golden highlights in the lovely, soft light.

With the apparent end of the day’s chasing we headed off to our east with a long drive still in front of us to our north east to the Ramada at Grande Forks, North Dakota.

Just as I was gazing sleepily into the near distance the still severe warned storm (severe requires gusts of 50 kts plus or hail of 1” plus) suddenly, and unexpectedly went tornado warned which I thought worth mentioning to the crew…We immediately pulled off at exit 302 and sat atop the overpass looking at a curious, quite dramatic but seemingly benign cloud dangling below the base which we had spotted earlier. Reports were coming in of rotating wall clouds and tornadoes on this storm. The wall cloud was rotating but the scud like cloud beneath it didn’t appear to be; it was fairly dramatic nevertheless. Perhaps chasers to our west with a different view may have thought they were looking at a tornado or perhaps they really saw one, in any event tornados had been called in.

We eventually stopped for food at Fargo. Fargo is a decent sized city of nearly 250,000 population. Curiously neither the titular film nor the TV series of the same name were actually filmed in Fargo. The Arby’s conspiracy was in full flow as it had just shut as we arrived so we head off to Applebees, a staple feeding station for storm chasers with normally decent fare. Still full of several yards of Subway I order a French onion soup, just to be sociable and a couple of beers just because I’m very thirsty. The “soup” when it arrived consisted of a huge slap of chewy cheese on a lump of what I assume was bread with a couple of teaspoons of liquid below. Revolting and inedible, but that’s how it comes, the US’s take on classic world cuisine. I’m $20 lighter but too tired to care.

We head north into Grande Forks and arrive at our hotel at 1:00 a.m. I make a half decent fist of backing up photos and charging batteries but the blog is beyond me so it will have to wait until the  back of the SUV tomorrow (i.e. now) to complete. That’s a shame as the WiFi is rapid with a couple of photos uploading in seconds as opposed to several hours at the Super 8 in Murdo the previous evening which just happens to be where we’ll be staying tonight. As it happens the Wifi is rapid tonight!

Total Miles: 766 (this is 7 shy of my Plains record from day 1 in 2006).

Day 4 – Onwards North, onwards and onwards…

After an interesting morning we’re on the road just after 8 and go for breakfast at the Butterfly Café at an airfield near Goodland, Kansas. It’s curiously built into what passes for the terminal, model airplanes hanging from the ceiling and crop dusters landing outside. Despite the surroundings my breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns and toast was excellent as was their homemade jam. Bravo!

There’s some discussion as to where we’ll be headed today. The SPC have a slight risk in Montana but that is 12 hours away and just too far for today. So the plan is to target a slight risk in North Dakota tomorrow with a staging post overnight at Murdo, South Dakota. Murdo has some significant nostalgia value being the first stop I ever made on the Plains in 2006. I wonder if the Anchor Inn is still there?

It’s another lovely day and we are heading north again, clipping the far south west corner of Nebraska  before having a stop outside of Wray, Colorado and then on past the sandhills. Three states in half an hour, then onto the US 385. My phone once more picks up Cell One of NE Colorado which resolutely refuses to give me a data connection so sorting out kids sports, replying to emails etc. will have to wait.

We stop for lunch at the Steel  Grill Steakhouse in Bridgeport (very nice burger and fries and wifi) before resuming our journey on US 385 north. Storms are initiating north of Rapid City, South Dakota. A 2% tornado risk has popped up in the Texas Panhandle, but hey ho we have a different plan.

As we head towards Chadron in northern Nebraska we summit a hill and suddenly are in a gentle valley full of trees; it’s extremely picturesque. We have a pit stop at Chadron and set off – towards Mount Rushmore.

We cross into South Dakota and its rich, verdant grasslands with farmers turning it all into bales of animal feed.  The Black Hills come into view and the scenery changes again into gently rolling hills with forests on the higher slopes. A buffalo grazes nonchalantly at the side of the road and we start our ascent into Mount Rushmore. 

It’s not peak season but it’s busy enough. We travel up the winding Highway 40 into the very touristy Keystone and park up. There’s a very short walk through some pillars commemorating when each state entered the Union with their corresponding flag. Mount Rushmore itself is quite impressive with the four presidents (Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson and Roosevelt) sadly backlit making photos a bit of a challenge. We dropped back into Keystone and had some beer (24 oz IPA) and some nachos before heading off for the 135 mile drive to Murdo east on the I90. Not long after we join the interstate a car heading in the opposite direction loses control and spins across the meridian onto our side somehow not rolling in the process requiring some breaking and accident avoidance.

A quick and well worth detour takes us through the spectacular Badlands National Park with just enough light for a couple of snaps. Arrive back at 11p.m. so the Anchor Inn will have to wait for another 11 years...,

Total Miles: 591

Day 3 Part 2 of 2 - TORNADO!!!

Quick Summary

I'm too tired to write this up so I'll do it in the SUV tomorrow and pick out some photos.

We stopped near Joes, Colorado with our best looking storm going tornado warned which was a pleasant surprise as the SPC was still showing a marginal risk. In the distance it had a very pronounced wall cloud and it almost immediately put down a straggly tornado which caught us photographers on the hop. By the time I'd retrieved my long lens from the rammed van it had gone. Peter called it in and it was confirmed by another spotter. We chased the storm for some time which had some fantastic structure and wall clouds that look fit to burst to put down another tornado right in front of us.

We eventually headed south, collected the I70, headed east to Burlington, grabbed a McDonalds and then drove to our hotel, Super 8 in Goodland Kansas through torrential rain and spectacular lightning. Braved the torrent to get a couple of beers and it's now time for bed. Amazing day!

The not much longer version

A long drive towards Yuma, Colorado with one storm intensifying  to 50,000 feet, showing 3” hail and strong TVS markers. Got to Cope, Co at 17:45 Mountain Time. Note: this can be a bit of a gotcha in that you sometimes don’t realise that you’ve gone from Central (-6 BST), to Mountain (-7 BST) with the real possibility of setting the morning alarm and hour early, or worse an hour late.

We stopped  15 miles north of Joes and just as we got out of the SUV to view the storm it put down a straggly tornado from under a prominent wall cloud about 20 miles away which was confirmed through a telephoto lens (dust swirl apparent) and from another spotter’s report.

We dropped south back towards Cope to get a better view and were rewarded with  a number of wall clouds, lowerings and good rotation boot sadly no further tornadoes. Continued south and stopped again towards sunset  with the now strong outflow back lit by the sun. Wow.

We carried on south back through Seibert and then east onto the I70. Several  storms had now come together to form an outflow line with lots of torrential rain and spectacular lightning. We arrived at Burlington with the intention of eating at Arby’s which was now closed so we had to slum it at McDonalds. Another 30 minutes east and we were at the Super 8 in Goodland, the car parks looking like small lakes. Despite Peter’s considered driving down the interstate with speed appropriate to the conditions we were overtaken by several semis still going full tilt causing the Suburban to twitch as they shot past.

A jog through the rain to the adjacent gas station for a couple of weak, tasteless Mexican lagers   for Marcus and was followed by backing up the photos, publishing the blog (as far as I got) and putting a quick update on facebook was as far as I got before slumping into bed. Great day on a another “rubbish” marginal set up.

Total miles: 511

Day 3 Part 1 of 2 - High Plains Drifters...

So day 3 arrives after a no win night in the Super 8 in west Amarillo, Texas: leave the air con off and cook or leave it on and share the room with an old Soviet era tractor that has never been serviced and runs on cheap vodka and distilled boot polish.

Breakfast is at Ye Old Pancake Station. The pancakes with maple syrup make a full English at a greasy spoon look like detox. I choose an omelette with hash browns and can’t eat it all. Average place though the cute waitress (of which there are very many over here) is transfixed with the Hugh Grant and David Niven act Marcus and I seem to carry off so effortlessly…

Word of the week is:  Marginal. The death ridge has pretty much done its thing with orographic lifting by the High Plains the only game in town with each day looking like Groundhog Day that’s had an illicit liaison with Déjà vu.  Breaking things up we visit the historic Route 66 in Amarillo where Marcus makes another schoolboy error and enters an “antique” shop. Being the oldest thing in the shop he is unceremoniously added to the stock. Dead by day but it may liven up at night time; I think Route 66 has seen better days.

Today we’re heading north on US287 in the vague direction of south east Colorado 5 or 6 hours away. We’ll be heading through the Oklahoma Panhandle and then likely through Campo Colorado. We’ll take a view along the way of what we’re going to do. The next couple of days look slim but there are still some murmurings of possibilities in North Dakota at the weekend. I think we’ll keep heading north to keep our options open, perhaps taking in a National Park in the Rockies at some point, in any event it does add some new scenery to the trip.  The big but is this: the distance from central North Dakota back to Oklahoma City is epic and cannot be done in one day, it’s a thousand miles…The SPC has a slight risk for Montana tomorrow. If we could get there (another monster drive north) North Dakota could be on.

We stop in Dumas for a break with some discussion as to its correct pronunciation before heading north once more. We enter the more rugged terrain of the Oklahoma Panhandle, once a neutral zone north of Indian Territory now absorbed into Oklahoma. We stop at Boise City for a picnic lunch in a small park, resisting the temptation to have a go on the kids’ slides.

We cross over into Colorado and pass through Campo where I saw 5 tornadoes on May 31^st 2010. Was that really seven years ago? Peter has recovered the radar images from the NOAA archive and plays them on the laptop which brings that day flooding back. A bit different to this year sadly.

A 2% tornado risk appears way to our north east in eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota, and in no time at all a video of a landspout (a non-supercellular tornado) appears on facebook.  We continue north and pass a couple of small hills known as Two Buttes (pronounced two beauts I believe).

We pass through Springfield where we had to go to the Sheriff’s department and report our accident in 2006 then on to Lamar for a pitstop where I stayed in 2010 at the Blue Spruce enduring a particularly bad breakfast. A quick review and we’re headed north again. We stop at Kit Carson for a driver change and a stretch before commencing our relentless charge north through the endless flatness crossing the I70. There are storms to our NNE including one west of Fort Morgan that is severe warned and showing a TVS marker.  We keep going.

The roads are rougher up here with signs by the side of the road stating no snow ploughing between 7 pm and 5 am. It’s been nearly 30c today; I’ve only been here in late spring/early summer, what it gets like in the winter must be something else. The road is making typing in the back of the SUV somewhat challenging as we bounce all over the shop. We take a right onto US 36 looking for a storm.

Day 2 – One of those terrible “marginal” days…

A bad night’s sleep was followed by a standard breakfast at 87 restaurant in Clayton which was helped down by Marcus’ schoolboy error of ordering tea and getting iced tea instead. Never fails to amuse when this happens which it does regularly with Plains newbies. Evan asking for hot tea with milk is a lottery so I reluctantly stick to what passes for coffee.

Another sunny day with a marginal SPC forecast so we’re off west to the extinct Capulin Volcano  I last visited in 2006 to do some sightseeing. The van is much more orderly today with the Tetris game of packing the boot (trunk) now mastered and all the extraneous junk now properly stowed.

Pretty much a waiting game today to see if anything bubbles up later, I’ve given up refreshing the SPC forecasts as hope has been set to one side.

A long coal train passes us by with 121 cars and 5 engines. Yes I counted them, it narrowly beats “I Spy” to pass the time.

We get to the Capulin Volcano National Park, park up near the summit and walk up and around the crater. The views are worth the slight shortness of breath (8750 feet), hills in the Oklahoma Panhandle are easily visible as was a gentle boundary indicated by some small clouds. We get back to the Suburban and…say what? A 2% tornado warning has appeared right by us just as it did in 2010. It’s right over Campo too. Bonus and I didn’t see that coming. The mood lifts.

We trundle into Folsom with its abandoned and dilapidated shops and houses  and pay $1.50 to go into the Folsom Museum (www.folsommuseum.org) built in 1896 the same year as my house back home and filled with artefacts from the Sante Fe trail,  a piano dumped from a wagon as it was too heavy and rescued by a rancher, a grizzly photo of the hanging of train robber Black Jack who lost his head in the process…literally and a sign advertising Swastika Coal replete with swastika emblems. The company appeared active until 1940…We head back towards Clayton to pick up provisions and gas up. We have a chase on our hands.

We head south on highway 402 where a storm has initiated with rocketing convection, white boiling clouds ascending  to the heavens producing a baby storm. Two other storms are up and running too. We watch it for a while and it starts to fade so we return to Clayton. While there the three storms start to regenerate so we head south again and soon the northerly storm is severe warned and producing decent CG lightning. We get out of the Suburban and are rewarded with some nice structure: a clear rain foot, precipitation free base and wall cloud. Soon all three storms are severe warned so we continue south to catch the most southerly storm which is now dominant.

We head south west on US 52 and stop by a railway line for photos with a huge hail core evident and now topping out at 49000 feet and showing 3” hail. We stop again and then stop at Logan for a pit stop before heading south on highway 469 towards the southern edge of the 2% tornado risk box. We eventually get to the I40 and head east for the 90 mile trip towards Amarillo. As we head down the interstate sporadic  CGs light up the sky to our north.  We are booked into the Super 8 and head to the Texas Roadhouse for salad...and a very nice rib eye steak.

A very rewarding chase day considering the original forecast.

Total miles: 354

Day 1 - Off to the High Plains...

I’m wide awake at 5:00 a.m. so get up and get ready, packed and “breakfasted” early followed by an overview of storm chasing for the group from Peter, this year with the addition of a computer simulation of the 2011 El Reno tornado.

With the SUV packed, a trip to the rental place to get Rick added to the insurance for the Suburban, followed by van and picnic snacks from Walmart, coffee from Starbucks and we’re heading west towards Clayton, New Mexico a mere five and a half hours away. Today will mostly be about repositioning with the chance of some storms later; the SPC showing the risk as marginal. It looks like we’ll be camped on the High Plains this week with an interesting severe set up possible for the weekend.

We travel west on I40 stopping briefly at a gas station at Elk City before heading on to Shamrock, Texas where we stop for a picnic and a wander round the historic Art Deco Conoco Gas Station where I pay $11 for an authentic Route 66 mug having just kissed the fake Blarney Stone for no obvious reason, my affection not being reciprocated…You can read more about Shamrock from my 2012 trip.

We continue west and turn north at Mclean on Highway 273, through Pampa and north west on Highway 152. Anvils come into view from storms to our west and north west yet they are more than 175 miles away. That’s like seeing a storm in London from Leeds…A storm west of Clayton becomes severe warned at about 5 p.m. 51,000 feet high and showing hail of 2” on radar.

The severe warning lapses but we crack on until we are north west of Clayton and get to see some lightning before the storms start to dissipate. It’s 9 p.m. and most places are closing so we grab a rather poor Dairy Queen  chicken burger in Clayton before retiring to the Super 8. Marcus and I polish off some Shiner Bock we had liberated from a gas station and then its zzzzz time.

Total Miles 462

Day 0 - Chillaxing...

A quiet day in the hotel getting acclimatised started with the standard, and not very enjoyable hotel breakfast. After spending the morning resting up Marcus and I had a wander over to the Subway across the road only to find that it was closed on Sundays. We had an amble down the road in warm and humid conditions past the Sonic Drive In and found a Whataburger. A new one on me, but the table service and tasty, succulent chicken sandwich were really good, possibly the best chain burger I've had over here and good value too.

A doze in the afternoon followed and we met with Rick, Kathie and Antonia in the bar and on to dinner at the adjacent Short Smalls for a decent honey mustard club sandwich.  

Peter and the tour 5 guys turned up at 10, a good chat and a couple of beers and it was time to turn in. Hopefully a poor season will come good this week with the ridge starting to lose its grasp and moisture becoming more evident. A bit of a sleep in then the week officially starts.