2018--day 4
Friday, 25 May 2018
Short night's sleep in Kearney. Big decision to make: travel toward the northwest for a potential chase in Montana on Saturday (a long ass drive), or chase today in western Oklahoma where conditions look interesting (potential dryline/outflow boundary interaction, and less driving but not by much). The second option won, so we left Nebraska at 8:30 local time and headed south toward Antarctica (I mean Oklahoma).
Drove through Hays, KS, but not long enough to patronize this fine establishment.
Cannot recommend highly enough the pre-packaged smoked turkey sub from the Cenex gas station in Greensburg, KS. There are more choices at the attached Subway, but it was nearly a foot long, had more meat than a Subway sub, and cost a staggering $2.99. Lesson learned.
After a pitch-dark pee stop, we set up shop in western OK (Arnett/Vici/Woodward, state #11) during the late afternoon in the hopes of catching storms developing near the intersecting boundaries. Managed to catch a horseshoe vortex while waiting.
Took some time to launch a radiosonde; Gage, OK surface data tells us that it's 90 over 66, which in layman's terms means it sucks to do things outside like stand and breathe.
Amarillo's radar shows a good dryline signature.
Things came together very nicely later on that afternoon and evening, as we chased a slow-moving supercell moving southward through the eastern Texas (#12) Panhandle. Another nice mammatus show and some interesting features (a small funnel cloud, a beautiful hail shaft (this hail shaft is a bad mother--shut yo' mouth), and a great horizontal vortex that I couldn't capture on electrons due to my driving down a long dirt road. The hail was half-dollar sized (1.25") according to reports, but we didn't get to confirm that. And the locals were friendly...perhaps we'll have them over for dinner someday.
Had to give up on that cell (it'd weakened anyway), but then headed east on I40 through Shamrock where we got treated to a phenomenal supercell that pictures couldn't possibly get right (I did try, though). Chased it for some time but it was getting dark, so we suspended operations for the day after watching the lightning.
The day ended around local midnight in Woodward, OK after a sumptuous feast at a local Scottish bistro. Final tally: four states and 638 miles. Boy does that bed look comfyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Short night's sleep in Kearney. Big decision to make: travel toward the northwest for a potential chase in Montana on Saturday (a long ass drive), or chase today in western Oklahoma where conditions look interesting (potential dryline/outflow boundary interaction, and less driving but not by much). The second option won, so we left Nebraska at 8:30 local time and headed south toward Antarctica (I mean Oklahoma).
Drove through Hays, KS, but not long enough to patronize this fine establishment.
Cannot recommend highly enough the pre-packaged smoked turkey sub from the Cenex gas station in Greensburg, KS. There are more choices at the attached Subway, but it was nearly a foot long, had more meat than a Subway sub, and cost a staggering $2.99. Lesson learned.
After a pitch-dark pee stop, we set up shop in western OK (Arnett/Vici/Woodward, state #11) during the late afternoon in the hopes of catching storms developing near the intersecting boundaries. Managed to catch a horseshoe vortex while waiting.
Took some time to launch a radiosonde; Gage, OK surface data tells us that it's 90 over 66, which in layman's terms means it sucks to do things outside like stand and breathe.
Amarillo's radar shows a good dryline signature.
Things came together very nicely later on that afternoon and evening, as we chased a slow-moving supercell moving southward through the eastern Texas (#12) Panhandle. Another nice mammatus show and some interesting features (a small funnel cloud, a beautiful hail shaft (this hail shaft is a bad mother--shut yo' mouth), and a great horizontal vortex that I couldn't capture on electrons due to my driving down a long dirt road. The hail was half-dollar sized (1.25") according to reports, but we didn't get to confirm that. And the locals were friendly...perhaps we'll have them over for dinner someday.
Had to give up on that cell (it'd weakened anyway), but then headed east on I40 through Shamrock where we got treated to a phenomenal supercell that pictures couldn't possibly get right (I did try, though). Chased it for some time but it was getting dark, so we suspended operations for the day after watching the lightning.
The day ended around local midnight in Woodward, OK after a sumptuous feast at a local Scottish bistro. Final tally: four states and 638 miles. Boy does that bed look comfyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
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