2012--Day 10
Day 10
Very difficult decision today. We’re getting nearer to the end, and there
are still commitments (Canada) that need to be fulfilled. After spending a second night in Fort Collins,
we are under a tornado watch that starts from south of Denver and runs
northward into east-central Wyoming, and it lasts until 8 pm MDT. We also need to be mindful of the Dakota
scenario on Saturday, where the SPC has been advertising a slight risk all week;
when the long-range models are hinting at something this far in advance, it’s
worth paying attention (unless they’re wrong, which never happens—not). Our decision has been clouded (so to speak) by
the fact that yesterday’s outlook was marginal and we saw some pretty
impressive storms. The worry (as always)
is that if we commit to one area/direction the action will fire in the opposite
direction. In any case, after much
debate, we decided to move north on I25 toward Wyoming.
We made it to Cheyenne and stopped at McDs for
lunch (first time this trip for me). It
was supposed to be a grab and go situation, but as it turned out we spend quite
some time in the parking lot waiting to determine our next move; the kids could
have used the playplace after all (sorry kids).
The big worry is that the environment is conducive to HP (high
precipitation) supercells, which could pose a flood threat. While we were waiting to decide what to do, I
witnessed a couple of boys (probably an older and younger brother) drop a
scooter and a skateboard into some bushes in front of the bank next door to
us. They walked over to McDonalds for
lunch. About 30 minutes later a woman
pulled up to the bushes and took the stuff.
I thought it was somewhat strange.
We posed some theories about what was happening (including the
possibility that she was stealing them), but let it go. Occum’s razor prevailed, unfortunately, in
that the simplest explanation was indeed the correct one. The kids returned sometime afterward, and
they looked surprised and upset to find their stuff gone. Further evidence of the decline of
humanity. I’m hoping the bank’s camera
was able to get her plates. Sadly, I was
sitting in the van with a camera equipped with a 20x optical zoom lens, but did
I think of it while it was going down?
Of course not.
At long last we decided to head north on I25 from
Cheyenne to chase a promising cell with a severe thunderstorm warning; by the
time we got to mile marker 60 or so the cell had a tornado warning. A few miles later: jackpot. The storm was about 15 miles away, and it was
producing a wedge tornado. We parked at
a convenient rest area and took about 400 pictures when we weren’t jumping up
and down shrieking. The storm was
well-developed, moving southeast toward the highway. The tornado eventually became rain-wrapped
and no longer visible. After a time we
decided that the storm was getting too close for comfort, so we pulled off of
exit 69 onto a gravel road. While
pulling off we saw tornado #2, thinner than the earlier version but still, a
tornado is a tornado. After a little
while of watching, a friend of Gustavo’s (a grad school colleague who works at
the Cheyenne NWS) texted him and mentioned that she was south of us. We decided that retreating was wise (those
who chase and run away live to chase another day). While heading for I25 south we encountered
several cars and trucks (one towing a boat) under an overpass that blocked our
egress. We politely informed them of our
credentials and told them that they were in a really bad place (it didn’t come
down to explaining the Bernoulli effect with our portable whiteboard). I think at least one of them took the free
lifesaving advice, and we headed south on I25, getting off on Wyoming 313 to
head east out of a town with the charming name of Chugwater (a place we stopped
in during last years’ trip). Not long
after setting east on 313 did we make the trifecta—another wedge tornado. After snapping and ‘filming’ (does movie film
even exist anymore?) for a while, that tornado roped out, so we hopped aboard
the HMS Incubator (see last year’s
blog) to get out of this cell’s way. Being
between two cells, the northern one that provided the afternoon’s entertainment
and one to the south that had a circulation as well, we were concerned that the
road we were on didn’t provide many good north-south options (somewhere around
none), so we high-tailed it as fast as we could…until we reached a road work
flagwoman who didn’t seem particularly fazed about potential doom from the
heavens. After about five minutes, the
pilot car came and escorted us out.
After traveling the entire 30+ mile length of
Wyoming 313, we sat and waited for a while (so
much of storm chasing is waiting, nothing at all like the cherry-picked, highly
edited stuff you see on TV). We
eventually decided to head back the way we came, as the cells no longer posed a
problem for us. As we drew closer to
Chugwater (what a great name for a town, especially this one), we saw hail on
the side of the road. Being the
ubergeeks we all are, we stopped and searched for the largest stones (about
2”). I was very thankful that we didn’t
actually drive through it. Three tornadoes, two of which were large,
long-lived wedges—not bad for our students’ first tornado experiences; every
subsequent tornado will probably be boring for them. And to think that this was a marginal day—such
is the nature of mesoscale forecasting. Thank
you Wyoming, you’ve been great!
We stopped for a quick dinner in Wheatland, the
town through which the tornadoes went. Apparently
the tornado sucked all the good condiments out of the local highly ubiquitous sub
shop that a friend of mine from SLU referred to as yellow hell. I’d like to meet the individual who developed
light mayonnaise so I can smack the ever-living light mayonnaise out of him. (If it was a she, I might be forced to
rethink my philosophy about hitting a woman.)
Driving north on US18/85 north of Lusk is
providing a beautiful view of the orange sunset parfait on the western horizon,
with the mesas silhouetted against the sky.
I would take a picture of this, but it wouldn’t do it justice (that and
the serial insecticides committed by the windscreen).
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