Awesome Day and Then...
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