Storm Chase-cation

Eric's dad invited us on an epic stormchasing trip at the end of last week. Zig zagging across tornado alley, from Colorado we visited both Texas and Nebraska once, and crossed through Oklahoma and Kansas three times each. Over 4 days, Verne and Eric Carlson and I went a total of 2,883 miles.

April 11
We left early afternoon and raced down to La Junta and the Comanche Grasslands. The storms ended up not doing a lot, and there was an incredible haze that really limited visibility. On our way to Amarillo for the night, the road was closed from Dumas on because of large hail drifts. Took the long way around and stopped to watch lightning illuminate another developing storm heading back into Dumas.

April 12
The target moved up to Goodland, KS. We went up the road to Dumas to see the hail drifts, and later in Cactus we saw some major flooding.

A car that wondered off the road at night

Flooding in Cactus, TX

Waiting in Goodland along I-70, nothing seemed to be developing where everyone was expecting. Eventually some cells did fire up north at the Nebraska border. We raced up there and found a good vantage point just south of Trenton NE. A small funnel cloud developed, but that was the most we got.

A small funnel cloud forms

We got gas in Atwood KS and ran into the Dominator from the "Storm Chasers" TV show. I was excited to finally see it. Verne and Eric however were much less impressed and just stopped to catch up with Reed Timmer (who was totally zoned from both chasing and working on his phd).

The Dominator stormchase vehicle

April 13
Driving south to our target of Enid OK, I got to hear many fascinating stories of all the tornadoes Verne has seen driving on the exact roads we were traveling.
We made time to stop in Wakita, Oklahoma to see the 'Twister' museum. This was the main town that got hit by a tornado in the movie.

Wakita, Oklahoma!

'Twister' movie props

The only storm that produced a tornado that day went over Norman, on the southeast side of Oklahoma City. We didn't want to deal with traffic close to the city so opted to stay on the outskirts, and watched a cell over Chickasha instead. It went outflow dominant, but someone said they saw Verne's live web stream airing on CNN while we were watching it.

West of Oklahoma City

On the drive back to Russell, there were spinouts every mile from all the rain. Earlier we had even seen a kid hydroplane off the road right in front of us.
The last day of our trip by far had the best storm outlook, but that day deserves its own page. Next post: April 14, 2012 tornado outbreak.