the pictures i took (not very many) are here ( Read more... )

We drove into Lonoke, Arkansas this afternoon (after some fabulous bbq in Texas of course) with pleasant memories of yesterday but doubts about the future. The models are pointing at a chance of storms, even the possibility of tornadoes, into Monday - our last possible chase day. However, models are notoriously inaccurate this far out and even up ( Read more... )

we spent a long afternoon driving back and forth in eastern texas slightly south of the panhandle. high cape, fairly weak shear (but fabulous compared to the last few days), no cap whatsoever, front passing through...everything was there. but as we sat in gainesville, tossing a frisbee back and forth in an aa office parking lot with occasional ( Read more... )

the chase is on...at least for the next day or two. today was our first shot at it, and we managed to chase down two cells ( Read more... )

so we 'punted' our day of chasing today, so to speak (for some reason people like sports metaphors) in favor of driving all the way down to liberal, kansas (on the kansas-oklahoma state line). why, you ask? because as we were heading to northwest nebraska/wyoming/south dakota, the models for tomorrow in texas took a nice turn for the better - shear ( Read more... )

on a completely unrelated-to-everything sidenote i have an awful farmer's tan AND the only clean shirt i have left shows off my awesome neck tan line ( Read more... )

so today turned out to be a bad day. we ran into a fair bit of rain and that's it. at least the tornado wasn't a big one, but in a bad weather pattern even missing that is sort of disappointing ( Read more... )

The chase is, more than anything, a real-life strategy game. Using knowledge of the current situation, a little bit of foresight, and all the resources you have, you plan to strike with the best move possible. That said, one can't always predict the best move possible, and sometimes a decision that seems good is the wrong way to go. Case in point: ( Read more... )

in beatrice, nebraska for the night. this is admittedly the biggest town we've been in since we entered the state i think. long day of eating on the road (but it turns out the hummus that was brought in the cooler is delicious) and hours and hours of driving - 13 hour trip, but ignoring breaks it was probably closer to 11 ( Read more... )

we are in dale, indiana, the middle of nowhere. we popped in for dinner at a tiny, local midwestern comfort food type restaurant. there were more people in our group than in the restaurant at the time, haha. nice surprise i guess ( Read more... )