THE GLAMOUR OF STORM CHASING

I’m writing this as our chase team presses through an electric night bound for Wichita, Kansas, from the Texas Panhandle. We won’t arrive in Wichita until the wee hours of Tuesday. Then, after a few hours of sleep, we’ll push even farther north, hoping to capitalize on what should be a turbulent day along and ahead of a cold front.

Today (Monday), quite frankly, was a bit of a disappointment. We tracked a couple of high-based supercells across the Panhandle, but never met with the awesome, in-your-face display of meteorology we did Sunday when we were in nature’s delivery room to witness the birth of a supercell on steroids.

Photo: Monday—-high-based supercell just east of Amarillo, Texas. That’s a rain/hail shaft in the lower left, not a tornado.

Monday we managed to draw fire from several marauding bands of hail, and once had to turn tail and run after we failed to beat an advancing supercell to a particular road we wanted to follow. When golf ball-sized stones began shotgunning off the van, and we knew even larger caliber stuff lay in wait, we beat a fast retreat.

Oh, and here’s my lesson-learned for the day. It’s damn hard to write a blog bouncing through a rainy, wind-swept, lightning-filled night in a Chevy van filled with guys munching on Subway footlongs.

Addendum: we arrived in Wichita at 2 a.m. After about four hours of sleep, I was awakened by a good-morning phone call from my wife in Atlanta. Bye bye Nodsville.

Ah, the glamour of storm chasing.

-May 1, 2012-