May 19 2011

The SPC had issued a slight risk for severe weather in our area today although the tornado risk was twice as high as yesterday at 10%.

We headed out towards the Greensburg area, The SPC upgraded the risk to a moderate for our area and things looked really good, and storms began to fire. We moved north to intercept the first few cells but they would moving faster than anticipated at 50-55 knots and after experiencing some small hail in the core they were too fast to keep up with. We abandonded them and headed back south to intercept new storms fireing up along the dryline.

The storms were weak and dissorganised though, and died before they really got severe. However towards sunset were intercepted some cell near Dodge City, that produced some nice structure. A nice end to the day.

May 18 2011

There was quite alot of potential for today, decent CAPE values of 2500 as the moisture lacking from the plains since last week finally swept back in.

We headed back to Oklahoma and targeted Watonga where we would wait for the storms to initiate. All the ingrediants were there but the capping inversion was obviously stronger than the models had indicated as we eventually was treated to the stormchasers nightmare "blue sky bust"

We eventually gave up and headed to Wichita, KS to get into position for tomorrows chase.

May 17 2011

I'm not sure if today qualifies as a chase bust as the potential was so low. Anyway we headed to SE Colorado as the morning models indicated that that was the area if anywhere where something may happen. The dew points were lower there than in NW Texas but we hoped the higher terrain may work in our favour.

Nope... nothing happened!, and we called off the chase quite quickly before heading to Woodward OK to position for tomorrow. The potential for severe weather looks better as we head through the week, fingers crossed!.

May 16 2011

This was just a relocation day to move south into Texas, now our eighth State in this years chase.

Hopefully the low level moisture should return in the next few days to make the end of our chase potentially more interesting.

Anyway we headed to Amarllo and the Big Texan, where after failing to see anyone manage to eat their 72oz steak, It finally happened as a guy from Vermont polished it off with 9 mins to spare of the alloted one hour. Tomorrow will hopefully be a chase day, but our target is unknown yet. Let's see what the models say tomorrow.

May 15 2011

Today was a relocation day, as we start to head south to wait for the storm potential to increase next week. We decided to head back to our chase base in Norman, OK and take the time to just chill out after alot of days on the road. We have covered 7 States so far on this years chase, so it was nice to just unwind.

It also meant that I was able to visit my favourite place of Italian cuisine out here in the Plains..the Olive Garden.

May 14 2011

Today was another of our dreaded down days. Fortunately though the pattern is looking better as we head into next week.

We decided to head to the Cosmosphere and Space Center, where they were showing Sean Casey's IMAX movie "Tornado Alley". It was nice to finally get the chance to see it as I wonder whether they will ever show it in the UK. We also watched the "Hubble" movie too which was spectacular. The museum is awesome with the original Apollo 13 command module on show there too.

May 13 2011

There were no storms predicted anywhere near our range today as they had moved way over to the east. So we decided to head back into Kansas to begin the wait for the next wave of severe weather to fire up next week. We took in some of the local sights on route, and I captured a nice sunset after we had booked a motel in Hutchinson for the night.