Some images from the last several days.
Top left just some cake from The Big Texan Steak House. Pikes Peak with snow. A lone Silo in an open field south of Garden City, KS. The Ford Center in Frisco, TX, not in the shot to the left is the headquarters for the Dallas Cowboys.
What is also crazy, is that when I was visiting with my friend he was telling me about the high school football stadiums in the area. Some of them costing more than $42 million dollars to build. But football is life in Texas.
Not much has happened since the last post.
Today we are headed to Amarillo, TX and will spend two nights. Sunday and Monday we will see some storms that are severe in nature with lots of lightning. Right now Tuesday looks to be the most interesting day with all possible hazards possible.
Tonight we will be eating at the The Big Texan, home of the 72 ounce steak.
Will try to post some images tonight when we arrive in Amarillo. Would do it now but being a passenger in a van with limited space makes it not easy to do.
Lots of driving today, Did end up seeing a severe thunderstorm. Did see some nice bolts of lightning.
Have some images of the drive up to Garden City, KS. Will post them on Friday while waiting for the start of the tour.
As for chasing today Thursday, the Texas panhandle is the place to be. The problem is it would be a 12 hour drive back to Denver. Plus, the car car has a maintenance alert so I don't want to risk driving to far. I did call the rental agency and they said to continue to drive it.
Friday will be a down day. Doing laundry and catching up on other things. From Saturday until Thursday it's out of my control on what we see and do. Whatever we see and do on clear days I will post them here.
Nothing to report from Day 4 other than I went from Little Elm, TX to Oklahoma City.
Yes we finally get to chase today.
The storms for today are ok, with only a 5 percent chance of hail and wind being the only threat. Right now I am looking to drive to Garden City, KS. From there will take a look at radar, Satellite, and look at the models to see if anything has changed. Storm initiation should be occurring in southeast Colorado Western Kansas around 4pm local time(5pm EDT). Will update after arrival into Garden City between 12 and 1pm local time(1 and 2pm EDT).
Unfortunately, I will not be driving through Hooker, OK( home of the Hooker Inn) or Liberal, KS(official home of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz). These two places are only 24 miles apart.
Tomorrow will be more interesting day. As its the last day of chasing on my own. Currently there is a 2 percent chance of tornadoes in the panhandle of Oklahoma and northwest OK. The problem that arises is when do the storms initiate and where. As it would be a 5 to 7 hour drive back to Denver to return the car by 11am(1pm EDT) on Friday. Will know more in 12 hours.
Extended outlook:
Friday is a down day. Arrival day for the tour. Of course most of central Texas has a slight chance of severe weather already forecasted.
Saturday, the same area is still has a chance of severe weather. If we do chase from Denver to Texas it will be a long day as it is about a 10 to 11 hour drive.
Well still no storms.
Drove form Roswell, NM to Little Elm, TX to visit my friend and his wife whom I haven't seen since they got married.
Along the way I did see a nice thunderstorm while driving across the cap rock. Would have chased it but I was to far north. It did look impressive on radar.
Shortly after we got home from dinner we had a nice thunderstorm. Had several close lightning strikes of less than a quarter mile.
Did visit the Ford Center and the Dallas Cowboys Headquarters. Very impressive.
As for storm chasing Wednesday most likely in eastern Colorado. Then again on Thursday in Oklahoma. Friday will not be a chase as that is the arrival day for the start of the tour. At this point not sure at this time what weather we might see.
No images today, But I will leave you with a link to a video from last year. It might take a few seconds to start, if not press the play button,
Kanorado Lightning
No Chasing on Day 2.
Day two started out in Denver with an eight drive to Roswell, NM. It rained from Denver all the way down to the CO/NM border with some breaks of sun. The drive in NM on route 25 was beautiful. Just flat land with some hills. Of course you have to go to the UFO Museum, interesting to read about the history of the crash and the people involved.
The first image is when you enter Roswell. Second image of course the museum. Third image is route 25 in New Mexico. The last two are taken from a scenic overlook just south of the Air Force Academy. If you look closely you can see snow on the peaks. I did see the top of Pike's Peak and it was covered in snow. Even some of the mountains in New Mexico were covered in snow.
Chase plans, well nothing to chase Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday looks like the first chase day. The setup right now looks like from the CO/WY border down the front range into New Mexico and into the panhandle of Texas and parts of southwest Nebraska. Most likely will spend the night in Garden City, KS. That will get within a four to five hour drive of any where I need to be.
Left Boston at 7:45 and arrived Denver 4 hours later. The weather upon arrival was cool and very cloudy. So, I did not get to Garden of the Gods. However, Red Rocks Amphitheater I did get to. You can click on the image for a larger view.
There was some good storms out in Iowa with 21 tornadoes reported. Unfortunately, it would have taken me almost 12 hours to get to them and by the time I got there it would have been all over.
As for storm chasing looks like maybe Tuesday thru Thursday. The models are not in agreement about beyond three days. However, I will post some video and photos from the past few years to keep all entertained.
The day started at 7:30am MDT as we left Denver for our chase starting point in Broadus, MT. We arrived there just around lunch time. Waited for about two hours as we waited for the storms to form to our west. Then the chase was on until 12:30am CDT in Mandan, ND.
Here are some images from that day...
Hi all,
Sorry for the delay in getting these out. Had some problems.
The first week we drove over 3000 miles and covered seven states. All of these photos are from Day 1. The rest of the week the storms initiated after dark.
Have more images to process when I get back home.
Just a quick overview.
Day one drove from Denver to Pierre SD. Caught storms in the Blackhills of SD. Had six tornado warnings but no tornadoes.
Day two stayed in the same area. We spent an hour at Devil's Tower. Then we proceeded back to the Blackhills to chase. We stopped in the Badlands for photos of lightning.
Day three we left Pierre and finished in Lincoln NE. Caught storms just south west of the city. Had one tornado warning. On this tornado warning we are calling it BS has the winds were not favorable for development of a tornado, even though it was reported by police. At night it is very hard to distinguish between scud clouds and a tornado.
Day four (today) we are heading towards eastern Iowa and western Wisconsin.
