Wow! What a day I had yesterday on my first ever "solo" chase in Texas. Started the day in Amarillo as I left my hotel room at the Days Inn around 11:00 am. I then jumped on I-25 and headed south to lubbock. Upon getting some data in Lubbock I quickly realized that the sweet spot was going to be near the town of Abilene, Texas along and west of there on I-20. So from Lubbock I picked up HWY 84 and headed southeast to intercept I-20 about 40 miles to the west of Abilene. As I got about 50 miles southeast of Lubbock I noticed a storm exploding on radar to the northwest of the town of Snyder,TX. At this point I was about 30 miles to the north of Snyder and figured I had two options.
1. I could either turn around and go back to the north, which would effectively ruin me for the rest of the day
OR
2. I could do my best to try to get south and out ahead of the storm
So with those choices in mind, I decided that I had a decent chance to out-run the storm and get south of it. Boy was I wrong!
I got cored badly by this storm about 20 miles to the northwest of Snyder. It got so bad at one point, that I could not even see the front of the hood of my car. It was Zero-Visibility! I got pelted for a good 10-15 minutes with nickel-sized hail and blinding rain. At this point I could not go anywhere, so I pulled over, or so I thought...lol. As it began to clear up just a bit, I realized that I had not pulled over at all. In fact, I was right smack in the middle of the road! YIKES! Fortunately, there was little to no traffic, and anybody that was on the road was not moving.
Once I got out ahead of the storm, I stopped and got out to sneak a peak, and what a beast it was! WOW! I then tried to re-intercept the storm near the town of Roby,TX. I continued past Snyder on HWY 84 and then picked up I-20 and headed east for about 10 miles. At that point, I picked up HWY 70 and went north to Roby. The storm had moved to quickly to get ahead of it, so in order to avoid another "core-session" I stopped and waited it out. Once the storm passed I knew I had to call it a day and start the trip back home. I picked up HWY 180 in Roby and headed east until I picked up HWY 277 which took me through Seymour and Wichita Falls,TX and up through Lawton,OK and then up to Oklahoma City,Ok where i spent the night at the Super 8 Fairgrounds on the northwest side of town. I left there about 6:00 am this morning and arrived back in Lee's Summit around 11:15 am. All in all it was an awesome experience, one that I will definitely remember.
As we look aheady to next week, I have an interesting situation developing. My dad has a FREE United Airlines ticket voucher that must be used by May 18th. Seeing as how with work being the way it is, next week would be the only oppurtunity I would have to use it. So if a chase situation evolves the early part of next week(Mon-Wed) with a good travel distance (I.E. TX panhandle or Texas in general) I could potentially fly to that location and save some money by just using a rental car. We shall see. Current model indications show the next GOOD chase oppurtunity would be out in western KS next Thursday. I have to fly to Houston,TX on Friday, so thursday would be a little late. If it moves up to Wednesday or Thursday, then I may have an oppurtunity. I will keep an eye on the model runs.
More Later this weekend....
Tornado count: 0
Hail storm count: 2
Miles traveled: 1,535.19
Total Chase Season Miles: 2,449.51
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1 comment:
I like the blog. Keep up the good work!
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