June 30 was my final chase day of the season with Tempest Tours. Chris Gullikson took over the tour directing duties, and I headed towards Southern California on July 1. The tour group caught a nice storm in southeastern Colorado, I believe, and I drove through a thunderstorm along Interstate 40 in western NM, near the exit for Acoma (east of Grants). There was some vivid CG lightning with the storm as I approached, but I just kept on driving and punched the rain core. It wasn’t too terrible as far as low visibility and heavy rain, and I was out of it after a few minutes. Still, the storm showed some cool structure before the rain swallowed me up.
By around midnight I was near Kingman and Needles, with frequent lightning well to the NNW! A severe storm was in progress up towards Las Vegas and Death Valley, but I was tired and did not stop to get images. I wanted to get to Palm Desert.
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