I saw this strong wind event unfolding several days ahead of time, and arranged my work schedule so I would have December 1st off from work.  I wasn’t really interested in “chasing” a Santa Ana wind locally.  I was thinking about heading up into the Owens Valley and perhaps even a little farther north of Bishop to chase a “Mono wind” event.  A Mono wind event is associated with very strong east to northeast winds through Mono County and downstream from there towards the Sierra Nevada and Central Valley.  Sometimes spectacular (lenticular) wave clouds develop in these situations.  I yearn to photograph a massive standing lenticular cloud in the lee of the White Mountains, or Inyo Mountains, or anywhere in and around the Owens Valley or Mono County!

Charlie Bustamante elected to join me for the one-day jaunt, and I picked him up in Pacoima before sunrise on the 1st.  The news radio stations were all over the local wind storm damage and consternation some 10-20 miles to our east.  The winds had subsided substantially, though.  There was little reason to mosey on over to Pasadena and to fight morning rush hour traffic, unless we wanted to see a lot of horizontal tree stumps and slow-moving vehicles.  We headed up Highway 14 to the Antelope Valley and beyond.

With the upper low deepening a little and remaining near Needles today, flow aloft on the north and northwest side of the low would continue strong in and around the Owens Valley and the southern Sierra Nevada.  There was enough moisture near the center of the low to cause snow in the Big Bear area, but skies north of the Tehachapis were mostly clear, except for the lenticulars!  The wind through the Antelope Valley and western Mojave Desert was moderate, with gusts perhaps to 40 mph.  Skies to our east looked rather dusty as we chugged northward past Lancaster and Mojave.  The NOAA weather radio forecast for the Owens Valley mentioned wind gusts to 70 mph, and as high as 85 or 90 mph for the Eastern Sierra!  That’s what we wanted!  The Mono wind event seemed to have peaked the night before, when northeast winds on the top of Mammoth Mountain reached at least 150 mph!  (Several peak gusts of 150 mph were recorded there—if Mammoth’s wind instrument was subject to an even higher gust, the measurements were not shared.  Steve Johnson found that gusts of greater than 150 mph here are reported as 150 mph.)  Anyway, we could monitor satellite pics and weather obs on Charlie’s phone to see if it might be worth heading as far north as Bishop and Mono County.

We stopped at Red Rock Canyon (about 30 minutes north of Mojave) for about 30 minutes to stretch and to admire some of the bleak and stark landscapes.  The light was fabulous when I was here near sunset in March of 2010, but it was not fabulous on this morning.  Some messy lenticulars were overhead and to the east, but the sun was behind clouds and the light was poor for photography.

It looks like a little wall cloud was protruding from the base of one of the clouds near Red Rock Canyon.  We didn’t stick around to monitor for rotation.

After a stop at an Olancha convenience store to stock up on junk food, we headed northeast on 190 towards Keeler.  Ah, yes, it was great to be in the Owens Valley and its wide open, empty, desolate spaces, sandwiched between the steep slopes of the Inyo Mountains and Eastern Sierra!  And, something was definitely afoot weatherwise over Owens Lake.  Parts of the lake are covered with water now to help reduce the airborne dust during windstorms, but a large plume of dust was obvious towards our northeast, towards Keeler.  And, a massive low-to-mid-level cloud was hanging right over the “dry” lake.  It wasn’t really going anywhere, so it was a standing wave cloud.  Strong northeasterly winds were barreling down the east slopes of the Inyos, were kicking up dust along the east side of Owens Lake, and were causing this thick, black beast of a cloud to hover right over much of Owens Lake.  The cloud was perhaps more of a SCSL (stratocumulus standing lenticular) rather than an ACSL (altocumulus standing lenticular).

Charlie and I stopped about halfway from Olancha to Keeler to shoot the scenery.  It was quite chilly and the wind was blowing, but wasn’t too bad.  The gusts here were no more than 35 mph.

The view is to the north and NNE in the last two images above.  Below the dark base of the low-level lenticular is the plume of blowing dust.

We motored northeast to the 190/136 junction, and then went a mile or two or three northwest on 136 towards Keeler.  From here, we had a good look at the eastern side of the lenticular cloud, and a long-range view of the dust that was blowing beneath it on its eastern edge, very near Keeler.

We drove a few more miles towards the dust plume, and found a dirt road up an alluvial fan, east of Keeler.  The wind was quite strong here and we had a front row seat to the impressive dust plume and the rather strange cloud that was stationary over the lake, now to our west.  It was unpleasant outside—-in the low 40s with wind gusts over 50 mph with occasional dust.  Charlie and I braved the elements and documented the unusual scene!

The sun was just above the lenticular to our south, so we were bathed in nice bright sunshine.  I measured a gust to 56 mph with the hand-held Kestrel, and decided that was high enough!  Towards the northeast, a low layer of clouds appeared to be snowing on the Inyos…or at least was providing a massive snow virga display.

The next stop was Keeler, and that meant driving into the dust plume!  Keeler is known for its problems with dust and irritating particulates off of the nearby playa, but today the dirt and dust was getting whipped up off of the gentle alluvial fan slopes to the east and northeast.  One nasty dust-filled plume was blasting through a “lakeside” mineral business south of Keeler.  We drove around Keeler a bit to enjoy the wind and dust, and then north a few miles to Swansea.  I resisted rolling down the windows as much as possible…but couldn’t help myself from time to time.  I still have Keeler dust in my ears.

The wind and dust in the face became a tad tiresome, so Charlie and I headed into Lone Pine for lunch and a washroom.  After lunch we headed for more hospitable environs:  the Mount Whitney and Alabama Hills area west of Lone Pine.  A separate Stormbruiser page is devoted to the afternoon edition of December 1, 2011!

Charlie Bustamante and I moseyed on up to the southern Owens Valley for a day of wind and dust and photography.  The late morning hours were spent around Keeler and Owens Lake, and a separate Stormbruiser page was posted for that.  After lunch in Lone Pine, we elected to go into pretty picture-taking mode in and around the Alabama Hills, below Mount Whitney.  It was chilly and occasionally windy here, but not nearly as nasty as the conditions southeast of Lone Pine and around Keeler and Swansea.

The images above were a little west of the sharp switchbacks on the Whitney Portal Road west of Lone Pine, at about 8000 feet elevation.  The temperature here was about 28F, but the wind was light.  Mount Whitney itself was obscured by clouds.  We had driven beyond the official “road closed” sign (below the switchbacks), and came upon this part where plenty of rocks and dirt had descended upon the road.

The Alabama Hills are just west and northwest of Lone Pine.  Some clouds, including the large wave cloud that was over nearby Owens Lake, were shading most of the area; but, occasionally the sun emerged for a brief appearance and lit up our foregrounds.  The face of the eastern Sierra remained quite prominent and presented the usual fantastic photo ops:

From here we poked around the Owens River east of Independence, and came upon an old railroad station called “Kearsarge,” and an abandoned mining operation.

After one last stop to image the Eastern Sierra around sunset, we headed back south towards the real world.  I’m ready to go back already.

We are leaving VTN currently. VTN and vicinity may well be where we want to be towards sunset, but for now we are being pulled west and perhaps north a little, towards an apparent mesolow near the Black Hills. The RUC shows a nice tongue of high CAPE along the SD/NE border to our west. Shear and instability look very good later this afternoon between VTN and the southwestern edge of the Badlands area. The latest satellite pic shows a cu field near CDR.

With plenty of time to kill, we roamed off of the beaten path (U.S. 20) and checked out the little hamlet of Eli, Nebraska.  There isn’t much there except for a few houses and a church.  I photographed Chuck driving his tractor back home from midday mass.

From Eli we drifted towards the northwest and into the Badlands of SD.  A handful of cloud towers tried to go up around Batesland and Wounded Knee, but the cap held strong, to our chagrin.  We killed some more time on the southern fringe of the Badlands, near a dinky place called Rocksprings.  Some activity to the west, near the Black Hills, looked good briefly but then shriveled.  I led some of the tour guests to a hilltop, where a circle of rocks marked an alien spaceship landing site.  Storm clouds percolated in the distance to the southeast, near Valentine.  Super.

Well, it was getting a little too late to go on a wild goose chase back to VTN.  We waited near Sharps Corner for some new activity that was approaching from northwest Nebraska.  These cells threw a big anvil and some mammatus overhead, but the general trend was weakening and blah-blah-blah.  I managed to get a lightning image and a few other so-so pics, including the “kiss of death” cloud.  Our beds for the night awaited in Kadoka.

Ardmore presents numerous photo opportunities, especially if you enjoy taking pictures of old abandoned houses and junked automobiles.  We were there midday, so the light with the high sun was not particularly favorable.

With nothing in the atmosphere to chase, we continued north to Devils Tower and had some nice light just before sunset.

This was the final full chase day for Tour 4.  We began in Murdo, SD, and had to be back in OKC by early afternoon the next day.  So, we had to favor a play to the south, and fortunately there was a chance of strong storms in NW KS.  We chased some high-based convection northeastward from Russell Springs to Oakley, and then stopped just east of Angelus, KS, just before sunset.  Precip beneath a line of storms to our west and northwest was lit up orange by the setting sun, with occasional to frequent lightning behind St. Paul’s Catholic Church steeple.  It was a photographer’s delight, and the guests were amazed at the deep colors and stormy look to the sky.

First —- some Tour 4 group shots, with and without the dismal countenances:

…and a pretty Kansas cliff west of Oakley…

…and the amazing sky at Angelus, Kansas, in Sheridan County.  Little to no artificial image enhancement was necessary to make the sky look the way it did here!