Stormchase USA 2012

We're not in Kansas Anymore...

Day 10 is finally here. Our last day chasing.
SPC have a slight risk for the Plains from Oklahoma up through Kansas to Nebraska.

We set out from our base of McPherson in 40mph hot winds which soon reached 97F and headed for
the dry line.

Dry line Definition:...

We began the day in Hays, Kansas.
Todays risk was far up North so the plan for the day was to drive down to Hutchingson and visit the Space Museum there where they also have an IMAX cinema showing Sean Caseys "Tornado Alley".

Temperatures today were crazy. By 2pm it had reached 93F with winds around 40mph but a really dry heat.

The drive took us...

Thursdays Chase day began in the town of Limon Colorado, situated at 5377 ft ASL and made famous as being the site of the most gruesome lynching in American history back in 1900. Fortunately nothing quite as gruesome during our stay!

The most recent and significant Tornadic event of note was back in 1990 when a EF3 touched down west of Limon.

We woke...

Day 7 began in Amarillo.
Initially we'd planned to drive into eastern Oklahoma, however looking at the model forecasts for Fri/Sat we decided to head North into Colorado and await developments for Western Kansas.

The drive took us through the final portion of the Texas Panhandle into a narrow strip of the Oklahoma panhandle. The land is so flat here, a...

Tuesday was our longest drive so far. Leaving Sonora we drove North and into the the Texas Panhandle, our first view of Tornado Alley proper.

The area is flat, towns are few and far between and skies are big.
Dust Devils can often be seen dancing in the distance across the hot and vast wide open spaces.



Todays weather was...

Nothing could quite follow Sundays amazing day at Roswell.

Monday in Carlsbad started with a storm and heavy rain early morning.
It was all looking good. We saw Sean Casey and Brandon Ivey from Team TIV at breakfast who were also headed south to the Mexican boarder to pick up the days threat potential down there, however on the way down we passed the DOW...

The Roswell Mothership Supercell

What a day!
Starting off this morning in Carlsbad New Mexico, we first headed north to Artesia. Here we waited patiently as a cell formed to the west over the foothills of the...

Todays tour was a re-positioning day ahead of whats looking like a very promising setup for Sunday.

Our chase target for the next few days is New Mexico, and in the morning things were already looking promising.

The drive took us through parts of Western Texas then out on to the flatter plains of New Mexico, finally to...

Day 2 began in Corpus Christi on the Gulf coast. After a night of severe storms alleged to be the worst in 20 years causing significant damage in and around Corpus Christi; Friday morning started dry and hot with temps climbing into the mid 90s.

On what initially looked to be a pretty dead day, a drive to the beach had to be done followed by a quick dip in...

What an amazing day!
For those of you not watching the livestream, todays chase started in Irving Texas. A quick drive thru downdown Dallas, then the long drive south via Waco and Austin where the skies soon began to look interesting!

After passing through the MCS (Mesoscale Convective System) we finally reached a stream of supercells headed up...