Storm Chase First Two Days
Day 1:
May 11, 2008 -- I had stayed up late that morning...until a quarter till 5, doing laundry, packing, and finishing touches on cleaning my room. When I get back it will be time for my brother's graduation, and family will be around, so I had to get my room perfect! So I got about an hour and a half of sleep before I got up to take a shower and finish packing. Ah! My parents dropped me off at Squires and a bunch of us waited on the steps for the van to show up. And then we waited some more. And then some more. In the wind and rain. Finally they showed up and we packed up our stuff in the vans and headed to Cracker Barrel to pick up the out of towners. My mom called me on the way and asked if I had seen a Tornado yet. Yeah mom, we saw a tornado between blacksburg and christiansburg! I told her we'd be heading toward Texas, and she immediately went to the restaurant. Goodness mother! My mom wanted me to mention her in the blog! So hey! And Hi Dad!
After everyone was loaded up and together, we headed south bound on 81! After a while and looking at the radar, we saw some potential
It was pretty, I love it when there is nothing but fluffy clouds around! After that system there was pretty much nothing left on the radar, so we just had a bunch of road in front of. We were headed to Little Rock, AR to stay for the night.
We stopped by Knoxville for some lunch, then continued on and passed through Nashville and Memphis. Before Memphis we stopped at Jackson, TN for dinner at a Hardees and we got to see tornado aftermath in some trees along the road. They were blown down, split in half, and twisted. That tornado was the one that hit the University by there and blew down almost all of the dorms. It was on February 5th of this year I think.
We finally got into Arkansas after being in Tennessee after what it seemed like days. After getting settled in the rooms we had a quick meeting. I about passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow last night!
Day 2:
May 12, 2008 -- We had a slow start to the day. Since today was
just a traveling day, we weren't really in a hurry to get anywhere. We played some frisbee and tossed a football around while we waited to be ready to hit the road again. On the road they looked at the models to see where we would end up for the night. We were going toward Wichita Falls, TX, but with the new models in, we headed to Shawnee, 
OK instead. After we got here, we had another meeting...just on where we'd eat. The choice was either a local BBQ place or chains, like Denny's. Of course we went local, why eat at a chain you can eat at while you're home?! We're on an adventure out here! :) They had delicious curly fries, and it was nice to just sit down...at a table, and eat together, after eating on curbs and outside for a bunch of meals in a row.
Tomorrow is going to be our first major chase day. We should definitely at least see a super cell, if not a tornado. So I should have a lot of adventure to blog about tomorrow...or the next day...depending on the exhaustion level. They were talking about maybe chasing for three days in a row before these storms die out!
~Taylor~
Other blogs to check out:
Roanoke Times
Storm Chase Blog
Day 3:
May 13, 2008 -- We woke up to a windy day in Shawnee, OK. After our meeting where we decided to head south west, we chilled at the hotel a bit longer. Since we were quite close to where we wanted to go we weren't in a hurry to get moving. The cap was also suppose to hold until mid-afternoon.
We got on the road about 11 and headed to Ardmore, OK. When we got there we found a spot to hang out while we waited for some storms to start firing. We saw a lot of other storm chasers at and around the gas station we were at. We decided to move up to a local church which was on a hill, and we could get a 360 view! After waiting for a while with no such luck, and the radar not looking so great in that area, we moved on down into Texas, south of the Red River. There was a section of cells within reaching distance. So we hopped in the vans and jetted on down there. Getting closer we could tell where we wanted to position ourselves based on the radar. Out came the maps! Soon we could see the clouds from the storm in the horizon. One cloud managed to punch through the cap! It looked really neat along the setting sun. We got closer and closer, and decided if we wanted to see it, we had to go West and get close! Once we turned on a gravel road, we could see it dead ahead. We turned the vans around as to have a quick escape if needed. We got out and watched a spectacular show! There was incredible lightening and we even saw rotation coming from a wall cloud out of the storm. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough sheer to get anything from the rotation, but it was still a sight to see! I got some awesome lightening pictures as well as some pictures of the wall cloud.
Today we're headed into the heart of Texas to try and intercept some storms developing on the dry line! Should be quite an exciting day! :)
~Taylor~
P.S. I wrote this from the road on our way to Brady, TX!
***Pictures later!***
Day 4:
May 14, 2008 -- We started in Weatherford, TX, we decided to head Southwest to Abilene, TX. After looking at the radar and a few other models, we headed West a bit more. We had a pit stop at one of the many many Dairy Queen's in Texas. Driving more west, we stopped to top the tanks with gas in preparation of chasing. This was in Colorado City, TX I think. After we stopped we headed straight for our storm. We were able to get on a highway that took us right to it, and we got out of the vans to admire the beauty of this growing storm. It had a definite wall cloud, and the clouds above us had an aqua color to them. We hopped back in the vans to move more down the road to get away from being directly under the storm. Traveling down the road we noticed gustnadoes starting to form. After we moved, we got out of the vans again to get some footage of the gustnadoes. Unfortantely, it started to rain, so we moved again further down the road. At this point there was a huge dust storm starting, and on the other side of the road there was a huge gustnado. Later on we learned there might have been a tornado, or the beginning of one, behind the large gustnado. We still don't have enough proof, but a lot of evidence is there that there could have been one! We moved to try to get in better position of the storm. Traveling away from the storm, we could see how much it was growing. It was gorgeous! We ended up going down a road where there was a storm on each side of us, and we could see hail shafts in each storm! The road turned to dirt, but we tried to continue on to see the storm. There was plenty of rotation, and not a lot of lightning, surprisingly. The two storms that were on either side of the road ended up combining. To be safe, we turned around and tried to get on a better road to get a better advantage point. This ended up not working out for us. We pulled on a road and realized we were behind the storm. We actually stopped at the same gas station in Colorado City, TX that we had stopped at before the storm. There was major flooding and we noticed it had hailed by the piles of hail along the road. We gassed up a bit more, and got back on the road. There was a gorgeous rainbow that we could see pretty much the rest of the night. The group had decided to try and go through the storm and get ahead of it. We were unable to do this, the storm was moving way too fast and there were really bad downpours where visibility was next to none. So we backed off going through the storm and decided to stay to the back of the storm to see whatever we could see. It was still a fantastic view, and we saw the storm had a flanking line. The rainbow was still around, and we also saw a Pileus cloud! I had never seen one of those before. As it grew darker and darker we pulled over for one last photo-op, and that is when one of the clouds brought out a gorgeous lightning show. We watched it in the rear view mirror as we headed to Brownwood, TX for the night. The storm had spawned some tornadoes, even right near where we had been. If the road network had been nicer to us, then we could have probably seen it! We still saw some awesome sights though!
Days 5-10
The past five days we've been in a lull. We've just been moving around and sight seeing. Not much weather around, except for the East Coast anyway.
May 15, 2008 -- We went to Wal-Mart! Dave, one of the leaders, hates Wal-Mart, so this was a momentous occasion! Shh, but I got a picture of him in the Wal-Mart! Haha. :) A couple of girls also got candles for one of the girls who's birthday was soon. What we were going to put it in...we didn't know at the time. We actually saw some precipitation! Probably the only storm chasers to intercept something, haha. We ended up in Pecos, TX for the night. We stayed at Best Western called the Swiss Clock Inn. It was a quaint little place, and we at at the Alpine Lodge for dinner. Spaghetti! After dinner, there was a rainbow over the Lodge. It was pretty.
May 16, 2008 -- We were about 30 miles north of Saragosa, TX from where we stayed, so we went down and checked it out. Saragosa was hit with an F4 tornado on May 22, 2008. It was a town of 183 people and about 30 or so people died in the storm and many more injured. The tornado tore through a kindergarten graduation, and they had barely any time to protect the children as a spotter ran in and yelled tornado. We met a woman, named Nancy, who was a survivor, and was at the graduation. She was 17 at the time and had a two year old. She held the two year old in her arms as the tornado passed over, and she said the winds must of sucked him out of her arms because afterwards he had ended up behind her! That must have been scarier than the tornado going over her head. He was okay though. But her mom died in the storm. A lot of children lost their parents, but none of the children died. It was powerful being there. It was just still like a ghost town, and it'll be 21 years tomorrow since the tragedy. You could see a slab where the post office use to be, and the post office is now just a trailer. They rebuilt the pre-school and now there is a big shelter underneth it with a door that always stays open. If you go in it though, an alarm sounds, so you can't just go down there any time you feel like. The lady at the post office told us about 7 or 8 years ago another tornado came through and no one ended up making it to the shelter. So they probably need to figure out a better solution, but it doesn't appear many people live there now anyway. Nancy's son is a Senior at the University of Texas and is graduating with a degree in Physics and is going to grad school. So good for him! It was just an amazing experience to go there, and it really enlightens you as to what a tornado can do to a town.
After Saragosa, we headed north to the Texas/New Mexico border. We saw some awesome mountains on the way. The structures were incredible! We got lots of pictures of them, and ate lunch under El Capitan! Pretty awesome. We got to see the highest point in Texas too. We crossed into New Mexico (new state!!!) and it was pretty much dirt/sand and bushes. But it was still pretty. We pulled off into Carlsbad, NM and got some Mexican for dinner. I managed to get a grilled cheese there, since I'm not the biggest fan of mexican food!
May 17, 2008 -- We woke up in New Mexico and knew exactly where we wanted to go! ROSWELL! Where the aliens are! We headed right there, and stopped at the UFO museum, but we didn't want to pay $5 a person to go around the museum, so we just went to the gift shop and the other stores around the town. We found a neat little black light area, where you go into a tunnel and you come out to all these alien type things. It was pretty neat. I ended up getting a shirt for myself that said Roswell on it. It's fun. :) We only stayed an hour in Roswell, so we were on the road again soon. Headed up to the Texas "chimney". We saw a couple of storms on the way, but nothing much. We got to Dimmitt, Texas, and ended up getting some PIZZA! I was excited, because I had been wanting Pizza for a while at that point. :)
May 18, 2008 -- We decided on this day to go to Palo Duro Canyon! It was really awesome. We even got to drive down into the canyon. We had lunch down there, but it was extremely hot. Luckily there was some shade, or I would have passed out or something. Which is not unknown to me now, haha. After lunch we went up to the gift shop where they also had a mini-museum. They showed the different layers and which period it was from. The geologist in me was excited. Haha. They also had fossils they had found in the area layed out. Pretty cool! After we finished at the Canyon, we headed up through the Oklahoma pan handle and into Kansas (new state!). We stayed in Scott City, KS. It was this really sketch hotel that had flea market furniture, and all the rooms smelled musty. It was very...interesting. There were patios out the back of the room where plants were over grown. Dave said we need to stay at el-cheapo places so we don't have to worry too much about price on chase days because we'll be so exhausted we need to just crash somewhere. But, that hotel is a good story!
May 19, 2008 -- Happy birthday Jessica! :) I don't think we could get out of Scott City faster. I was excited though, because there was a post office right next to the hotel...well, across the street, so I ran over there and mailed my post cards. I hope those make it to their owners soon! Maybe tomorrow. We had breakfast at the vans, and got out of that hotel! We moved into Colorado (new state!). We got to our destination, Sterling, CO. And went to a local cafe for some dinner. Marielle snuck candles to our waitress to bring out in a dessert for Jessica for her birthday. She was surprised, and it was cute. I'm glad we could do something for her since she is away from her family. That night we also got together in Sandy and Morgan's room and watched Twister! That was fun, even though it's not exactly true to life. Especially when they are apparently in OK, but you see TX road signs! :P
May 20, 2008 -- We stayed in Sterling, CO. We headed west for a bit to get a glimpse of the rockies, but ended up eating lunch at a rest stop, played a little frisbee, and then headed back to the hotel. We went to a nice place for dinner, where they had filet mignon, and if I could have afforded it, i would have been in heaven. But instead I got some spaghetti. When we got back to the hotel we watched a nearby storm give a lightning show, and then we had a meeting and crashed.
Today -- We're chasing, sort of, we're just seeing what pops up and then headed to place ourselves in position for a big day tomorrow! We may see some great action! :) Hopefully I'll get my act together and update more regularly than I have been...oops.
~Taylor~
Other Blogs:
Roanoke Times
Storm Chase 2008
Day 11:
May 21, 2008 -- We left Sterling, CO that morning, not expecting much. We decided if we ran into something on our way east, then great, if not, there would be another day. So we watched Cumulus Fields form, and watched them rise. We stopped at Wendy's for some lunch, and went into the gift shop, where they had a ton of fun stuff! I got Colorado post cards...for me :)...and the "Taste of the Rockies" for Kevin's little brother. They're little candies that look like rocks. But not rock candy. We left there and headed out again, we found something that was promising. As we headed to it, we saw another storm that was promising, so we made sure if the first storm fizzled out, we could always turn back and go to the other one. And that is what we ended up doing. We turned around after the
other storm lost it's potential, and headed west again. Once we did that, another storm appeared to our east, where we had just been. We kept our eye out for that one as we chased our 2nd storm. We stopped to reevaluate the situation, and concluded our 2nd storm was the best choice, so we headed straight to it. We got to a clearing on a dirt road and pulled over to watch. We were there for a long time as we watched a beautiful lightning show, and wall clouds drop, and rain off in the distance. There was even some that evaporated before it hit the ground! It never produced anything, but it was a fantastic sight, and we were in the most perfect place to see it. I got some great lightning shots too! Some guys that worked near by came over and talked to Dave and others and told him about when there were six tornadoes around the area. Wow! I think he might have shown them video too, I didn't go over, so I'm not sure. 
I was too focused on getting a great lightning shot! :) After a while, we decided to move on to our destination of WaKenney, KS. We stopped to eat at an Arby's. :) No one else seemed to care where they ate, so I just threw that out there, and it worked! We got to the hotel, and we pretty much passed out we were so tired.
Day 12:
May 22, 2008 -- We met after breakfast to discuss our options as to where exactly would be a good place. Initiation wasn't suppose to be until later, so we could take our time getting to where we needed to go. We also wouldn't have to go too far, since we were in the middle of the tornado risk area. As we drove down the road, we were noting that the cumulus clouds were rising a lot quicker than the initiation time seemed to be. So we were in for an early day of chasing...which meant a lot longer time for chasing. We found our first storm.
It was beyond Amy, KS some. I forget exactly where, but around there. It looked very promising. Behind it was another storm, it looked even more promising, so we moved back to go see that one. That storm had a big rotation wall cloud, that kept sucking up cloud tags below it. We were waiting and hoping for it to drop a tornado right there in front of us, but the system kept cycling, and it didn't appear to want to drop a tornado. The other storm we saw a funnel, and later someone reported a tornado. So that was our first tornado of the day! After that storm, we moved in position for another storm, and that one dropped a tornado too! We got some shots of it before it disappeared, and it wasn't a typical tornado. The condensation funnel didn't reach the ground, but there was debris flying around on the ground, so the winds had made it to the ground. 
TWO tornadoes! I was barely expecting to see ONE! From there everything kind of gets in a blur of what happened after that. We went to more storms, and tornadoes were dropping left and right, and we ended up seeing 7 total from all those storms. It looked like things were settling down, so we figured we would turn around and head back to WaKenney, KS to stay the night again. When we turned around there was a couple people there and they came over to talk to us. They were a group of British filmmakers, I guess you could call them, doing a story on groups who go out and chase. They had been following a few people that day, and saw 3 tornadoes, and he was very impressed. When we told him we had seen seven, he was like WOW! He thought three was a lot, and we were like, it is! So they interviewed us and said they worked for the Virgin channel, but I'm not sure if anywhere around here gets it, but that was still very cool! We headed down the road when they noticed another cell headed right for WaKenney, so we decided to go see that one too. By this time it was getting darker, and it was getting a bit more dangerous to be out driving around dirt roads. But we went to see it anyway. We passed through WaKenney and went south to see the storm. We saw a funnel cloud, and turned down a small dirt road to get closer (eek!). The funnel touched the ground right in front of us! As soon as it touched, it sped off to the right. Then Dave gets on the radio and says we need to get out of there or we'll get hooked. So we tried to get out, but the other chasers their moved to we weren't able to go anywhere. We backed out and we started getting pounded. We finally got out of the road and back onto the interstate, but we were getting hit so hard we couldn't see much past the car. There was hail, wind, and rain pounding the car horizontally. I don't think I have ever been so scared in my life. The hail was golf ball sized and if it had been any bigger, it probably would have damaged the car. I'm still surprised the vans faired as well as they did. Sandy and Morgan in the middle of the van were holding on to each other, ducking down with their sweatshirts over their head and trying to talk to the other van who was further up the road. I'm not sure how the guys were in the back, but Kevin, the leader and driver, was praying next to me. I was curled up with my whole body shaking wondering if I needed to try and call people to say goodbye. I was so scared for my life. Soon...but really it seemed like years, the winds died down enough for us to try and catch up with the other van. It had turned to go east to get out of the hook. We found the road by following a car with a blinking light on it. Finally it started to die down, and my phone rang. It was my mom telling me dad had called and said there was a tornado by WaKenney, since she knew we were staying there again, I was like, I know it touched down right in front of us. It had to of been half a mile away. I told her about what we just went through, and I was laughing, but it was definitely nervous laughter...or hysterical. After we got down the road and to a place that hadn't even had rain all day, I started to calm down a bit. We got out to stretch our legs and watch the storm off in the distance. At first I did not want to get out of the car, but eventually I did. We were all pretty shaken up. I called my grandparents because they had called me after my mom called them and then I called Kevin to tell him about everything that happened. That was a crazy experience that I will probably not forget any time soon! After the fact, Dave told us that the part we were in was just the outskirts, and was the most non-severe part of the storm. It is really hard to believe anything much worse. When we got back to the hotel we had saw a van with the windows punched out, and we found out later that the chasers in that van had stopped chasing at that point, and had gotten something to eat. They were leaving the restaurant and ended up getting slammed with the storm and said the smallest thing that hit them was a stop sign. So they must have had worse than us, it is so hard to believe. The hotel's doors were blown open and some glass stuff inside was broken, and the gas station store across the street had their front doors blown out.
Today -- Might be the same as yesterday, but our dirt road options are less since they all got rained on yesterday and won't be very good to drive on in a van. We'll see what happens! We'll probably end up in east Kansas to get out of the way of any night time tornadoes that might come through the area. Hopefully my camera won't die today! It's all charged up and ready to go.
I haven't had a good connection to upload pictures just yet, but I hope I shall soon! The cable is knocked out here at the hotel, as well as the wireless. It also looks like the power went out as well, since all the clocks were blinking when we got in. Crazy!
~Taylor~
Other Blogs:
Roanoke Times
Storm Chase
Sandy's Blog
P.S. I forgot to mention that I saw the Tiv yesterday too! That was pretty cool.
Day 13:
May 23, 2008 -- We left WaKenney, KS at 11. Headed south until
we ran into sun, the place was covered with fog, and we wanted the sunshine! On our way we went through where the tornado was the night before to see if we could see a damage path. We saw a shed torn apart, and some other suspicious tornado made things, but other than that, there wasn't much of one. We stopped in Ness City, KS to get fuel and yummy treats. I got a hot dog, I just can't eat anymore sandwiches, especially after throwing one up the night before. Crazy! We ate lunch at a cute little park area, and we played on some playground stuff. We wanted to go to Dighton, KS, but a storm ended up being between us and the town. This storm grew fast! And it was huge! It was a gorgeous storm, but we had trouble with the road network and seeing the storm. The roads were so muddy from the storms the day before, we were still in the same area. After trying to follow it for a while, and ended in Quinter, we decided we wanted to go south and try and intercept another storm. We stopped at a gas station to clean off the windows since they were caked in mud, and we couldn't see out! Once we cleaned up the windows we heard a tornado alarm go off. What?! That was the first time I had ever heard one, and it was not a fun sound. We decided to head east, and then go south and intercept a growing storm that was looking very promising. We got closer and closer, and saw gorgeous 
mammatus clouds. Those are fun looking clouds. They might be my favorite clouds. :) We were stopped at this little 24 hour gas pump area, that no one actually works at, and some locals stopped by and told us to go North because there were never tornadoes around there. This was in Ransom, we moved east some more and waited for the storm to reach us. Then we moved west toward the storm. We saw what was either a wall cloud, or a very wide wedge tornado. We got close enough that Dave told us that was a tornado
...possibly a mile wide! We quickly headed back east, and then north to try and intercept it again. By that point it had gotten rain wrapped, and was hard to see at all. We headed to Hays where the tornado was going just west of it. We decided that it was a little too close for comfort, so we went east after we went through Hays, which had tornado sirens going off. We got off at the next exit to watch the storm over Hays. It was really windy, and I was ready to get out of there and head east out of all the storms for the night. But that was just me, and we were there for a while. Finally we left and headed to Manhattan, KS!
Today -- Headed north to Nebraska, might come back to Kansas depending on the storms, and might end up in Iowa! We'll see!
~Taylor~
Other blogs:
Roanoke Times
Storm Chase Blog
Sandy's Blog
Day 14:
May 24, 2008 -- We left Manhattan, KS and headed north into Nebraska (new state!). We decided we needed to go west after looking at the models, then when we re-evaluated, decided we needed to go more east to get away from being right by the dry line. But the day didn't produce anything. It was a "bust." So after seeing a really pretty cloud grow in intensity, and then fizzle out, we went back east and into Iowa (new state!) for the night. Not much to write about when it's a bust day, huh? Oh well. The trip seems to be winding down and we'll be home Tuesday. Maybe try to chase a few more things around the area before going home Tuesday. I think nine tornadoes might be it. Which isn't a bad thing, that's a lot of tornadoes!
So far...
- I've seen nine tornadoes (possibly more, that's just the official count).
- I've been in 10 different states. (more as we go through IL, IN, OH, and WV.)
- I've been in 7 new states! (AR, OK, NM, KS, CO, NE, IA)
- Stayed in 12 different hotels.
- Stayed in two hotels twice.
- Sent 10 postcards.
- Made 11 new friends! :)
Okay, that last one was a little cheesy, but oh well!
~Taylor~
Other Blogs:
Roanoke Times
Storm Chase Blog
Sandy's Blog
P.S. Actually, I'll be home Monday. We only have enough money for one more night! Stupid expensive hotels because of gas prices. I hate gas so much! Why must we rely on it so much?!