Start: La Junta, CO/lunch: Limon Arbys and Taco Bell/End: Torrington/411 miles
This was the final day of 6-day Tour 8. We had to be back in Denver on the 3rd, so the logistics were working out okay even if the weather wasn’t. We started in La Junta and headed north for eastern Wyoming. Models suggested that a storm would be waiting for us north of Fort Laramie, and we got right on it! Despite the no-risk outlook by SPC, we had more than enough shear and instability — finally — for a severe storm on this tour. We went up to JayEm and then west a few miles on a dirt road to watch this isolated and slow-moving supercell.
Beneath the anvil of our nearby storm, we could see another isolated storm to the NNE. This one was probably way up near the Black Hills.
Our “JayEm” storm provided a wall cloud or two, and the radar algorithm was spitting out a hail size of 3.75!” As the storm neared, the sun peaked out to the west and lit up the underside a bit. We were a bit vulnerable to large hail, and then were unable to get out of the way as one of the vans would not start! We jumped it quickly and motored to the east side of 85 a few miles to catch the nice light on the weakening storm.
July 3 was a drive-back-to base day, with a stop near Grover, Colorado, for a Grover Group Photo!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.