Most of the time we get out ahead of these storms and photograph them as they approach. But this time we really did chase them down.
We originally had the idea of taking I 70 out of Ft. Morgan CO in the early morning to Central Kansas where there was a good chance of severe weather in the evening hours. But, after looking at the HRRR and a few other models I became increasingly concerned about a large MCS forming in that portion of the state. It looked to me that the better target would be down in Oklahoma into the Texas Panhandle where storms would be more discrete. So, that is what we opted for with a new target of Amarillo Texas.
I wish I had taken some pictures on the way down through Colorado and the Oklahoma panhandle. The drought in that area has just been terrible and the land clearly showed it. We had a smoke filled sky from New Mexico overhead and a brown landscape that looked like it belonged somewhere in the Middle East. Numerous dust devils were also observed. The entire trip up to that point had been beautiful landscape and now we were driving across Mordor.
We approached Amarillo from the north on 287 hoping that we wouldn't be too late for storms. By the time we reached the city it was at least 6pm. Storms had already begun to blow up east of the city near the OK/TX boarder and initially I hoped that we could catch the ones south of I 40 on the Texas side.
However, it began to become clear that these storms would not develop further than the little showers they already were. Meanwhile another complex of storms was to the north of I 40 in Oklahoma... about an hour from us. I was able to convince James that these storms would be the best play for the day and he (despite being exhausted) kept the vehicle pointed at Oklahoma.
When we arrived it was clear that these were also high based storms like the one witnessed yesterday. Except that the Oklahoma cluster had considerably more instability to work with along with marginal shear. Dewpoints were probably not more than 65 degrees and combined with a temperature of near 100 degrees there was quite a large DP/Temp spread which is probably the most likely cause for the high bases.
One of the southern cells in the cluster quickly took over and began to rotate. This prompted the Norman Office to issue a tornado warning right at about the same time we arrived in Elk City to photograph it.
Like the May 19th evening supercell this one had insane inflow as well. Gusts were probably near 50mph.
When we got back to the hotel room in Clinton we examined the distance we drove from Amarillo where we first noticed the developing storms to Elk City and marveled that we even made it at all.
Looking back I can only conclude one of two things about our trip:
We were either extremely lucky to have seen all that we saw during the course of the adventure, or God was extremely gracious to us. I may get pats on the back for my forecasting skills but lets just say confidence in many of the forecasts was quite low and I was not the one who put the storms there... or even got us there.
Many thanks to James for supplying the vehicle and the driving for this season, and also for Justin coming along and sharing it with us as well as walking away with numerous amazing images (not to mention helping pay for the trip). I've learned a lot about photography from those guys and the images they produce.
Thanks should also be given to God for his incredible creation and for keeping us alive and well for the entire adventure... and for the privilege of even getting to have such an adventure.
And thanks goes to Karen as well for letting us barrow James for five days.
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