Ponderings and Musings

When I arrived home from my storm chasing trip on Saturday, this card and flower arrangement were sitting on my desk in my office. It immediately made me smile. Romance is such a wonderful thing; even after 27+ years of marriage.

I am a lucky guy.

Like the rest of The Empire State, my native Northern New York is quite conservative with speed limits on roadways. Interstates and other freeways top out at 65 MPH in New York, all other roads can’t be posted above 55 MPH. This is due to a “one size fits all” for the entire state, and because anything higher than 65 isn’t practical downstate, the relatively flat plains along the Great Lakes are treated the same way.

Here in Arizona, Interstates and other freeways top out at 75 MPH. Two lane roads top out at 65 MPH (in my experience thus far), though speed limits here in Pima County tend to be slower along non-state maintained highways.

Texas is a different matter. Two lane roads, even barely paved farm roads, top out at 70 MPH and the Interstates and other freeways are usually 75 or 80 MPH. One toll road in the state is posted as high as 85 MPH.

These more realistic speed limits, which match the intended design of the roadway, nudge drivers in the direction of respecting speed limits. In my limited experience during last week’s storm chasing trip, I didn’t see folks exceeding the speed limit all that often. In the Northeast of the U.S., the trend is the complete opposite, speed limits are often treated as a minimum or a suggestion and are downright ignored.

There’s a lot to question in the way government handles thing in Texas, but I really feel like TxDOT handles speed limits brilliantly. I know more states west of the Mississippi take the same approach. As a person that leans on personal responsibility more than nanny state tactics, posting a realistic speed limit encourages better behavior from motorists.

And for me, that makes driving more pleasant.

I returned the rental car this afternoon. Luckily, there were no broken windshields or other damage to the rental car from this year’s storm chasing trip. This Buick Enclave was great to drive. We spent just shy of 4,000 miles in 10 days together.

Tomorrow morning I’m back at work. My mind and spirit are where they need to be. My first meeting is at 6:30 AM. I know it’ll be a good meeting.

Back home safe and sound!

• Miles: 3935.2
• Packages of beef jerky: 7
• States: 5 (AZ, NM, TX, OK, KS)
• Number of severe thunderstorm warnings: 7
• Number of tornado warnings: 3
• Number of tornadoes: 1
• Number of broken windshields: ZERO (less than last year)
• Number of hail encounters: 2
• Size of largest hail: roughly ping pong ball sized
• Number of time zones: 3 (MST, MDT, CDT)
• Tubes of Pringles: 2
• Last storm encountered: thunderstorm east of Lordsburg, NM

So I’ve decided that tonight is the final night of this year’s week long storm chasing trip and personal retreat. I drove from Dumas, Texas to Odessa, mostly under beautiful skies and away from the Interstates.

The drive was quite pleasant. I love the flatlands. There’s a lot of oil rigs down here.

Mother Nature decided to get a little feisty today. It was nothing like last night’s adventure in Amarillo, but I started chasing a storm to the NE of Midland when I ran into a traffic jam on Interstate 20.

I sat in traffic for over an hour before escaping onto a side street. The storm got way ahead of me and though I tried to catch up, it dissipated before I could get any photos.

I’m back at the hotel now and getting ready to wind down my night. There’s lightning flashing in the distance. I won’t chase at night, so I’ll just watch the lightning show from my hotel room instead.

Two bottles of mayonnaise. Both made by the same company. But it’s two different brands.

For those not aware, it’s Hellmann’s east of the Rockies and Best Foods west of the Rockies.

Apparently I’m on the line.

People ask me why I chase storms. I have always been fascinated by storms and have wanted to chase them, and more importantly, experience them, since I was a young boy.

There are four distinct storms in my childhood that kicked this interest into high gear. One of these storms came into our small town around noon and darkened the area like it was midnight. We were trying to drive home but the wind and the lightning and the rain made it impossible for my mother to drive and we had to ride the storm out on the side of the road. I watched trees bend and lightning flash and all sorts of water wash over the car and it was awesome.

One summer night my sister and I were sleeping on the living room floor (because it was cooler than our bedrooms) and a very strong thunderstorm blew through in the middle of the night. This storm holds two memories for me; it was the first time I’d seen a large maple tree get blown over by a thunderstorm and our cat Waldo came home in the middle of that storm after a two week absence.

Anyways, onto the present day.

I settled in Dumas, Texas this afternoon and immediately headed south toward the building storms coming in from Dalhart. After navigating Texas roads through construction, I made my way to north of Amarillo, where a supercell was forming and showing promise of a tornado. I was watching other storm chasers on their YouTube feeds and monitoring radar; so I had a decent idea of where to position myself.

I found a good spot just north of Amarillo, where there were dozens of storm chasers.

I ended up following this supercell for a few hours, finally ending up just west of Panhandle, Texas. There I got to meet storm chaser from Tornado Titans Raychel Sanner. We had a nice chat. I also saw Reed Timmer and Dominator Fore along US Route 60. The storm had very impressive lightning and wind and for a few moments, ping pong sized hail (no damage to the rental car). At one point I was a little too close for the action, so I repositioned myself and watched it for as long as I could until it just got too dark.

This was the drive home.

I am now in my hotel room, enjoying some Moët my husband packed for me, in the event that I had a good chase day.

I was concerned this trip was going to be a bust in the storm chasing department, but this was an awesome experience and more intense than last year’s chase up in Nebraska.

I’m a very happy geek tonight.

I am stopped in a Walmart parking lot in Guymon, Oklahoma. I’m way out in the parking lot away from other vehicles but the WiFi connection is still quite good. Walmart has been a good friend on this trip in that it’s a convenient place to stop for a bathroom break and get some steps in by doing some laps around the store. I also pick up supplies here (drinks, chips, etc) because it’s cheaper than the convenience stores. I know, ten years ago I was writing about how I don’t like Walmart because of what they’ve done to too many small towns, but now they’re pretty much guaranteed in a small town and I’m not as feisty as I used to be.

I checked out the forecast this morning and for the first time in five days it’s actually talking about tornadoes. It’s not likely to happen but it’s not completely ruled out, so I’ll take it.

From the hazardous weather outlook

And now with pictures!

I’ve already booked a room in Dumas, Texas, with the intention of that location being in the center of the forecast circle.

After chasing the storms last night in Liberal, Kansas, I got settled into the hotel room for the night when an impressive storm came through. Winds were around 35 MPH and there was a few minutes of pea sized hail making a bunch of racket against the hotel room windows. Luckily, no damage to the rental car (though I am FULLY insured this year). This Buick Enclave they upgraded me to is enjoyable and roomy. I wouldn’t want to see it banged up. I tend to be conservative when chasing storms; I’m not going to drive into the middle of a hail core, let alone a funnel cloud. I like watching from a safe distance.

My mother has been checking on me this week as she worries about her oldest, even though I’m in my mid 50s. My husband knows I’ll be safe and responsible and just tells me to have fun.

I drove from Colby to Liberal, Kansas today. It was a pleasant drive. As mentioned before, I like the high plains, a lot.

I made a stop in Garden City and parked the car in the downtown area. I took the opportunity and today’s relatively short drive to walk around and stretch my legs. I found a small lunch counter type place for lunch. The folks were very pleasant.

If you ever want to follow along with my whereabouts, I’m fairly active on Yelp.

Once getting to my hotel here in Liberal, I noticed storms building to the south along the Oklahoma-Texas border, so I drove down there to get some snapshots and follow along with Mother Nature. Nothing went too severe, but there were some pretty impressive cloud to ground lightning displays that I enjoyed. The forecast for tomorrow shows more storm activity before a dry weekend. The timing works out.

There’s a part of me that wants to say this trip has been a dud when it comes to storm chasing, and it pretty much has, but I’ve seen some beautiful country, met some nice people, and sorted some things out in my head.

Most importantly, I’ve been relaxed.

I’ll probably get home to Tucson late on Saturday. We’ll see what Mother Nature does over the next 48 hours before I start heading for the desert.

The Storm Prediction Center forecast showed a chance of storms along the Colorado-Kansas border this evening. So, I got up and got myself organized and drove from Independence to Colby, Kansas.

If you look at a standard map of the United States, generally you’ll find the left side of the map is brown and the right side is green.

Personally I prefer the brown side. Obviously I love the desert. I enjoy the mountains. And I really dig the high plains. Driving across Kansas, the transition from the “green side” to the “brown side” is evident along US 160 when a driver westbound climbs atop a ridge around Grenola. It’s west of Hutchinson when it’s evident that you’ve fully made that transition, but you really start to see it when you climb that ridge.

A few storms organized along the Colorado-Kansas border as predicted earlier in the day; they were small in nature and small in number.

I followed the approach of this storm as I drove north of Colby along K-25. I stopped for a moment to get a lightning shot, but Mother Nature is still a bit fickle, and all I got was this little bolt in the left hand corner of this shot from the little storm that could.

Along the way I stopped in Great Bend, Kansas to walk the downtown area and stretch my legs. Folks were very pleasant to the person they didn’t recognize and several people said hello. That’s nice.

Tomorrow I’ll head down toward the panhandles as severe weather is predicted for tomorrow night and especially Thursday afternoon and evening.

I appreciate that Mother Nature is starting to get her act together for this trip.