I’ll squeeze in another update this evening for y’all.  But first things first —

KINGS win AGAIN!  Up 3-0 against Phoenix, 11-1 in the playoffs so far —- absolutely unbelievable!  Storms in NW KS weakened an hour or two before sunset, and gave us time to get to the motel in Imperial, NE, at a reasonable hour.  Our group invaded the Brickstone Bar and Grill in Imperial for dinner, and they turned on the Kings game for us.  I was able to watch the last half of the game, and the Kings prevailed, 2-1.

My last update was a week ago in deep south TX, May 10.  The tour had two full chase days remaining.  On May 11, Friday, we targeted areas not too far north of our starting point of Hebronville, TX.  Some cells went up north of San Antonio and around Austin.  These were generally weakly organized and rather low-topped, near an upper-level low in north TX.  Better instability was towards Houston, but I wasn’t going deeper into southeast TX unless the tornado chances were excellent.  They were not, and we fumbled around with so-so junk in the traffic and congestion and general Friday afternoon mess along I-35.  YUCK.  We managed to see some okay low-level structure on what appeared to be a low-topped left-split weak supercell northwest of Austin.  A forgettable day.  We stayed at Copperas Cove for the night.

The upper low continued east and took the instability with it, leaving us with nothing to do on Saturday (May 12) except to continue north towards OKC for the end of the tour.  Tempest guide Jennifer Dunn gave us a tour of the NWS in Fort Worth (where she works) after our meal in downtown Fort Worth.  May 13th was an easy drive from Ardmore to OKC, with a stop at Norman to look at the radar domes.  That afternoon we performed the mundane routine of getting the vans cleaned and prepared for the next tour.

Ten-day Tour 3, with guides Bob Smith and Chris Gullikson, began on Monday, May 14.  The best air and severe storm chances were well to the southwest, near and south of I-10 in southwest TX.  This was too far to reach from OKC, so we headed west into the eastern TX Panhandle.  Despite north flow aloft and marginal moisture, a storm with some low-level organization was observed a little south of Shamrock.  This one didn’t last too long, but another one went up to its west, and actually moved or propagated to the west a little!  We stopped and watched it weaken.  it was better than a sharp stick in the eye, but not by much.  The new group was happy to see a few lightning bolts and to get the feel for a little chase.  We found a motel in Canyon (south of Amarillo) after doing a little sight-seeing in Palo Duro Canyon south of Claude.

The next few days on the Plains were characterized by pathetic moisture and weak flow, and we went into sight-seeing mode for the most part.  Tuesday, May 15, was sunny and dry in the Panhandles and for thousands of miles in all directions.  We went into Palo Duro Canyon for an hour or so.  The ground was still a bit muddy from the rainy Monday weather, so we hiked just a little bit and then went to the Big Texan in Amarillo for lunch.  I checked the group into a motel in town mid-afternoon and watched the Kings defeat Phoenix 4-0 in the breakfast room.  GREAT DAY!

On Wednesday (May 16) there would be some very high-based storms along the Front Range in Colorado.  This activity was not chaseworthy, and we scoffed at it.  We headed to Clayton, NM, for lunch, and then took an unpaved road from the Black Mesa area in extreme northeast NM through Sheep Pen Canyon to Kim, CO.  The scenery along this remote route is very nice, and we had the road to ourselves for about an hour!  From Kim we continued north to La Junta, and then to Limon.  Considerable cloudiness and virga were encountered upon reaching Lincoln County.  Limon was our home for the night.

Today, May 17, featured strong but dry southerly flow through the High Plains as upper-level energy moved through the Colorado Rockies.  We went up into the Genoa Tower to look at 6 states, and had lunch in Flagler.  High-based storms went up nearby along I-70, and we went east with them.  To make a long story short, we observed some mildly interesting high-based storms south, southeast, and east of Goodland from about Sharon Springs to Colby.  Lightning became somewhat frequent around Colby, but then the activity weakened.  We gave up east of Atwood, and headed northwest to Imperial.  A great double rainbow north of Atwood was a nice end to the chase, and the Kings victory was a great end to the day!

Images later.

By the way, we may get to chase in or around eastern NM/west TX on Sunday, where an annular eclipse will be in progress at sunset.  This could yield some fantastic photo ops!

Tempest Tours Tour 2B began out of Oklahoma City on Sunday, May 5.  The weather pattern had been slow for the 3 or 4 free days I had between T1 and T2B, so I relaxed in OKC and caught up on some web site stuff and did not chase.  There was a decent tornado risk in eastern NE on May 5, and we raced with the new group of guests up to York and I-80 from OKC during the afternoon.  It looked like Custer County would be a good area to target — not too far to our WNW.  Some towers went up in that area, and then fizzled.  Chase over — we got rooms in Cozad and watched strong elevated cells go up to our NW and N.

My birthday, May 6, was another non-tornado birthday for me.  I am still waiting for my first b-day tornado.  We blew off the severe chance near E KS/W MO for better chances in central or western TX the following day.  So, we drove from I-80 to I-20 — over 600 miles, to position ourselves.  The highlight was keeping tabs on the Kings SWEEP of St. Louis, and a pretty t-storm during the evening near Aspermont, with frequent lightning in the back of the storm tower and a near-full moon rising above it.  We stayed in Sweetwater.

May 7 was looking quite volatile, but was overall a lot of driving and dissapointment.  We got to San Angelo in time for lunch and, unfortunately, very early convection.  Some severe stuff teased us near Knickerbocker, but there was too much too early and it was, unsurprisingly, messy and ugly.  We then blasted west for a long-lived cell approaching Mentone.  We killed it upon arrival.  After a bite to eat in Kermit and reserving rooms in Fort Stockton, a supercell got strong and turned right/southeast 50 miles to our north.  It approached Seminole, and we got south of it via Andrews.  It had impressive structure and occasional lightning.  This was around 9:30 p.m., with little or no light remaining.  After the core passed the N-S road, we moseyed on up to find a lot of small hail on the road, strong cold winds, and blowing hail fog not too far south of Seminole.  We got back late to Fort Stockton, with a nice CG show to our west between Kermit and Fort Stockton.  Another loud t-storm came through town around 3 a.m.

The cold front swept through most of Texas and there was cool and moist upslope flow over W TX on the 8th and 9th.  Severe chances were slim, though, so we focused more on scenery around Big Bend.  On the 8th we headed south to Presidio via Alpine, then went along the Rio Grande on 170 to Terlingua.  That is a great stretch of pretty scenery.  A strong storm passed NW of Presidio, but wasn’t worth bothering with.  During dinner at the Starlight Theatre in Terlingua, an impressive cell put on a lightning display up near Marathon.  On the 9th, the weather was overcast and very pleasant for the drive through Big Bend National Park.  Again, there was a slim chance of a decent storm in the region, but none occurred near us.  Our motel stop was Del Rio, via Marathon.

Today, May 10, featured good severe weather ingredients for south TX, and maybe not too far from Del Rio.  Supercells and tornadoes were predicted by SPC.  We hung around Del Rio into the early afternoon, then figured out that better convergence and low-level air was down south towards Dimmit County.  Upon reaching Highway 44 (north of Laredo), we considered going after big cells which were getting tornado warned to the east, but elected to stick with Plan A — wait for supercells moving out of Mexico.  One big one approached us as we waited ten miles southwest of Encinal.  A left split slammed into it, but this caused little more than a hiccup and the beast reorganized quickly.  As it approached our location, it featured a large area of lowerings and some good low-level structure.  It was a bit outflowish and HP-ish, though, and it chased us farther south as it turned ESE.  We raced south to Laredo and ENE on 59 to intercept it again, but it was even more outflowish and disorganized.  Occasional inch-diameter hail and heavy rain accompanied us on the way to a flooded Freer, TX.  I reserved rooms in Hebbronville, 40 miles to the south.  Nice lightning crawlers and this update summary are causing me to stay up too late!

Images will come later, as usual!

Last weekend featured an outbreak of tornadoes on the Plains, and many chaser acquaintances of mine had big days.  My friend Bary Nusz had an especially productive chase day—-links to his great video are below:

Timelapse of tornado developing South of Waynoka, OK 4/14/2012

I attended the reception for the gallery on Friday, March 10, and shot video for those who are interested or who are unable to attend. The youtube vid is here.

Below I have included the images by myself that appeared in the gallery. Naturally, small and large prints of these are available! Check with me (bill@stormbruiser.com) or Bernard at hangingart.org for info.

Fortunately, I have an e-mail account with the good folks at HostGator, which hosts this web site.  The ONLY way to contact me by e-mail now is by using this e-mail address:

bill@stormbruiser.com

The wmreid@roadrunner address is totally DEAD!!

Please notify everyone in the world of this.  Maybe something like this will get me on Facebook —- aaargh.

Bill