Tuesday, May 17, 2011

frustration.

i need an ally.

Monday, May 16, 2011

old blue backpacks.

i wanted to post about a long lost-ish friend and all the conversations we had...my ever present blue jansport, that chair that was pretty much reserved for my unexpected visits; discussing the topic of the moment, whether that was childhood home stories, upcoming trips, or miniature breakdowns that sometimes included tears (mine).

but that was the extent, so i guess i have nothing else to say.

Friday, May 13, 2011

amarillo's where i'll be.

i am sitting on a hotel bed in amarillo texas, with three of my chase mates, playing the only three amarillo songs i know on youtube. this is day 3 of the chase, and we have covered approximately 1600 miles so far. day one consisted of driving from starkville to western oklahoma in hopes of some good storms. an early set of storms (not predicted by the models) formed, though we still hoped that an outflow boundary would form out ahead, and we could still have a chance of seeing something. the storms formed an MCS, and all the rainfall stabilized the environment and the associated cloud cover didn't let it recharge. we did drive through some heavy rain and saw some cool lightning as we navigated our way through oklahoma city, but all in all, day one ended up a dead end.

we ended up in weatherford, oklahoma for the night. the next day we packed up early and headed south. we set up in a park just across the red river in texas. after killing a couple of hours, a dry line moved into the area and storms began firing. we loaded the van and took off after a storm back in oklahoma, searching for some large hail. the storm was slow moving and had a weaker inflow, and died not long after we reached it. another storm just to the west was looking good, so we drove to antler, oklahoma, to try and core punch it. we got a couple of hailstones, but it was mostly gone by the time we turned back around to find more hail. storms in that area were just not sustaining themselves well yesterday. we drove north and spent the night in mcalester, texas (no tea, i wanted some though, because all i could think about was mcalisters). we saw some cool lightning as we walked to a chilis next to our hotel, though.

day 3 started with a lecture on splitting storms and hodographs, and then we loaded up and drove west. we spend the majority of the day on the road, and we ended up in amarillo. we have a couple of off days before things start getting active again, so tomorrow we are spending the day exploring a canyon and going to the big texan. i also might get the chance to see an old friend. more than likely, we'll spend tomorrow night in amarillo too, and then we'll start making our way north again. hopefully this time we make it out of the states of oklahoma and texas. :)

Monday, May 9, 2011

great plains storm chase.

hello all. in approximately 3 days, i will be setting off on the greatest adventure i've had the opportunity to take.

my bag is sort of packed, i have lists upon lists of things to do and buy and pack and take...and i'm ready.

feel free to follow our adventures while we are gone! we have an official chase team blog, where you can see video and pictures of the things we're seeing or doing, and you can also track our progress via an interactive map. our van has gps that reports back to the website and you can follow us through all the storms. the blog also features SPC outlooks, storm reports, and radar for the great plains. in addition, we have a twitter account, and i'll also be updating on my twitter too. beware: if you get updates from me sent to your phone (but who does that anymore, right?) you should probably turn them off.

here's to adventuring and thunderstorms!