Sunday 11 June 2017

Back home

We've been back home a few days now - just in time for the election!! 

In the end we did just over 5000 miles in just over 2 weeks in the USA. We saw a few good storms...fewer than we would have hoped for but that's how the cookie crumbles! The best looking storm was the one which gave our car a bit of a beating...first windshield damaged in 17 years! (from hail, anyway). Add into the mix a very cool trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks and we had a great time.
The main problem was a strong and stable ridge of high pressure. But that's crumbling a bit now!

Wednesday 7 June 2017

June 7th...home time

Hello.

After driving to Wichita Falls yesterday we have a relatively short trip of just over 120 miles to DFW airport, for our flight later today. The journey home is soon to start!

Tuesday 6 June 2017

5th June - report

Hello.

The drive to Dallas continued today with around 540 miles driven from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Amarillo, Texas.

We saw a few thunderstorms en route, as we drove south along I-25, close to the Front Range of the Rockies. The strongest of these were close to Raton, New Mexico. We paused and viewed them for a few mins. We also encountered some small hail, up to around 0.5 inches across.

Grab from a short video showing a CG lightning bolt.

Storm east of Raton, NM.

We saw quite a lot of mammatus today - some here seen east of Raton, NM.

Monday 5 June 2017

June 4th - driving

Hello.

After a relaxing start to the day with a massage at the resort (for me anyway - Helen opted for a bit more of a lie in), we drove the 440 miles from Teteon to Cheyenne, as we start to make our way back to Dallas for Wednesday.

Sunday 4 June 2017

June 3rd - sunshine and hot springs

Hello.

Today we did something we've wanted to do for a long time: visit the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks.

Neither disappointed: Grand Teton with its beautiful mountain vistas, and Yellowstone with its geological finery. To top it off there was still a reasonable amount of snow about in places too!

Rather than write down what we did, a few pics are below. Basically we drove north through Grand Teton, and then did a clockwise lower loop of Yellowstone, including Old Faithful, which we saw erupt.

It was a long day of driving quite slowly, but more than worth it! Including the sunburn!

A few of the many pics I took below.

Teton Range reflected in lake.

Grand Teton.

River and snow.

Frozen lake.

Old Faithful.

Same.

Grand Prismatic Spring.

Osprey - we saw this dive into the river right in front of us!

Waterfall.

Yellowstone Lake.

Saturday 3 June 2017

June 2nd...to Teton!

Hello.

As chase-worthy storms are going to be at a premium we've headed to Teton Village in Wyoming, for some sightseeing. Tomorrow we aim to see some of Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks.


Friday 2 June 2017

June 1st

Drove 430 miles from Hays, Kansas, to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Just for fun.

Mammatus outside the hotel window in Cheyenne - taken with my iPad.

Thursday 1 June 2017

May 31st report

Hello.

Today there was a broad marginal to slight risk of severe thunderstorms from portions of the western High Plains east-southeastwards into eastern Kansas and portions of Missouri. A slow-moving frontal boundary was close-by as well as several outflow boundaries.

We decided to target the I-70 corridor to the west of Salina, and headed to Russell for lunch. We then spent several hours there, whilst a number of storms formed south-east of us, near and east of Newton, along an outflow boundary. We held firm, watching a confluence zone near and south-east of Goodland which had gradually deepening convective circulations along it. A couple of showers formed south-east of Colby and so we departed and headed west, past Hays, to WaKeeney. We waited there for a bit as the showers deepened, and became thunderstorms. We then dropped south.

We observed an organised thunderstorm north of Ransom, which exhibited supercell structure for a time, before it become somewhat messier. However, we did observed a brief wall cloud which appeared to be from an occluded low-level mesocyclone.

We dropped further south to Ness City, and then east, and then north to Hays, observing some great lightning.

It was a good chase after a long afternoon waiting for initiation in our target area.

Random F-14 in WaKeeney, Kansas.

Supercell north of Ransom, KS.

Occluded low-level mesocyclone north of Ness City, KS.