Mesoholics

Well, we knew it was going to be a long drive today for modestly organized storms…and it was.  Storms fired early, earlier than predicted the day before and so for a long while we were playing catch-up as we headed south through Texas.  Ironically, the best location looked to be San Angelo yesterday, and that was the location where the storms formed today.  Luckily the storms were slow moving and that allowed us to catch up with the main storm cell by later in the afternoon.  While weak rotation was exhibited in the storms, it was pretty evident that none were going to produce anything special.  It was basically a structure and hail day, and that was basically what we got.  Some very nice structure pictures and some very nice 1 in hail near Fredricksburg Texas.  Winds also picked up nicely today and on more than one occasion the rain and hail were falling more horizontally than vertically.  Internet feeds became intermittent south of Abeline and for a period of the day, we were without internet.  Still a fun day to chase in a week that otherwise, looks to be fairly uneventful.  Pattern problems galore are in the forecast!

After a bust day Saturday, finally some storms on our first Sunday in the plains.  Yesterdays cold frontal boundary was sagging south, and we started the morning in the cool air beside the front.  The plan was to move south into the warm sector and wait for storms to fire along the cold front later in the day.  Morning convection had thrown out a gust front, and so the original target of the day was Independence, KS.  This would allow us to catch storms both on the gust front and along the cold front, whichever looked better.  The first storms of the day did form on this gust front, but were moving south into poor chase territory.  We wanted to wait for something better.  More storms did event:ually form along the same cool pool, but we were still holding out for something better along the eastward advancing cold front. By 5:30 pm with more storms forming near Kansas City with reports of brief/pulse wall clouds and funnels, we finally decided to bail on any storms along the cold front.  Then finally a weak storm began to form just as we were about to leave for Kansas City.  Given our position, and looking at the parameters, we decided to go after this new storm.  At first it was developing on the cold side of the boundary and not really riding along it.  It pulsed  a few times, but was slow to really get going.  Then an hour before dark, finally it started moving right and began to show signs of weak rotation.  By this point we were in perfect position for intercept and were able to keep ahead of the storm and get some decent pictures of some weak wall clouds at the base of the main updraft. We then continued to follow this storm and the storm immediately to its south for the next hour or so down some pretty small rural back-roads.  Lightning was picking up through the evening and so it was a pretty cool ride down some very hilly Kansas roads!    The day ended waiting for hail north of Yates Centre before heading to Wichita for the night.

Destination Monday, looks to be south Texas.

Brian

Mesoholics is please to announce that Elena Lappo, meteoroligist supreme from The Weather Network, has also joined our storm chasing team.  Its great to have Elena with us!  Check out our website as Elena will be sending frequent blogs and updates!

More equipment work today…new second GPS antenna install, CB antenna install and CB radio install.  New pictures to follow.  Some more work to do next weekend, but close to complete.  Just 2 weeks away from our departure to the plains. 

Awesome stuff!

Brian