Mid-May Doldrums

The final chase day for Tour 2 was May 10th.  We observed a couple of impressive supercells, stayed in Haysville for the night, and drove to Oklahoma City on the 11th.  The 11th was a big chase day for many, with a beast of a supercell in eastern NE along I-80.  The Tempest staff was tasked with preparing the vans for the Tour 3.

My drivers on Tour 3 were Rook and Bob S.  We did a quick orientation for the group late morning on May 12, and dashed northeast towards the jungles of northeast OK and southwestern MO.  A cold front was kicking up some thunderstorms by early afternoon —- yuck.  The activity was linear and junky for the most part, and I was not happy driving around in the trees looking at unimpressive blobs with occasional semi-scary lowerings.  I cut the torture short and we rolled into Springfield, MO, around dinnertime.

A cold front had cleared the Plains and our tour group was looking at several days of little-to-no severe weather potential.  On May 13th we did a short tour of Joplin, MO, where an EF5 tornado occurred a few years prior.  The drive to Hoisington, KS, for the night was easy and relaxing.

May 14 — there was a risk for high-based junk on the High Plains, and that is exactly what we got.  The air was quite chilly as we loitered around abandoned places near St. Francis and Cheyenne County, KS.

May 15 — not much to do except some exploring on the High Plains of eastern CO.  We killed some time at Keota, CO, and spent the night at Cheyenne, WY.

May 16 — Cold air continued to pour into the Plains states, and we had another few days to wait for decent moisture return.  Our tour group visited the snow-covered Ames Monument near Laramie, WY, and then took a pretty drive through high terrain to Walden, CO.  I was thrilled to watch the L.A. Kings eliminate the Ducks in Game 7 on this evening.

May 17 — There was a little instability available for some so-so storms near the Cheyenne Ridge and the Pawnee Buttes.  We returned to the Plains from the Rocky Mountains, played with a storm near Briggsdale, CO, and later near Cheyenne.  If memory serves correctly, the Cheyenne storm had some decent structure and some nice inflow, but at over 6000-ft elevation the temperature of the inflow was in the 40s!

Here are some images from May 9 to May 17: