Day 3: Extreme close-up of a rotating wall cloud, my 30th state, and 7 pics of lightning

After the disappointment yesterday, today started with a similar atmospheric profile. The mood was glum and we were restless. We knew that conditions were only marginally favorable for severe weather development in our neck of the woods.

We headed west from Brownfield, TX as thunderstorms began to fire in the mountains of eastern New Mexico. I had never been to New Mexico and being a geography nerd, was very excited to get my 30th state! We stopped in Dobbs and then the waiting game began.

The Land of Enchantment was relatively unenchanting with regards to severe weather.

Around 1pm, Dr. Brown decided to launch a weather balloon to get a feel for the atmospheric setup near us (the nearest radar sites are over 100 miles away). It was only my 2nd time ever observing a sounding launch, and the first time I've gotten to hold the equipment. Results? The atmosphere was very dry in the lower levels and only slightly better aloft. It was time to head back east - but where?

Me and the weather balloon! It's amazing that what looks like a party balloon and a styrofoam cup can tell you tons about the atmosphere.

Storms were firing about 100 miles to our east in Midland, but they appeared to be fizzling. The SPC highlighted an area close to the Mexican border about 150 miles south, and we initially headed that way - but something caught our eye unexpectedly on radar. It was a pulse thunderstorm about 40 miles east of Midland appearing to interact with an outflow boundary... the same one we drove over last night.

Bingo.

There were no other chasers in the area - they all went south -  and the roads were clear. The storms exploded in the course of 30 minutes, and by the time we got there a severe t-storm warning was issued as the updrafts soared 10 miles into the sky! I happened to get my first picture of lightning on the approach - the first of SEVEN separate bolts I got on camera.

Looking into the heart of the severe t-storm near Big Spring, TX. My first shot of lightning!

We got perfectly into position on the storm's southern flank and stopped to watch the show. Radar-indicated velocities showed a mesocyclone beginning to form, and the storm quickly began to take on the classic kidney bean shape of a supercell. Wind speeds in the storm reached to near hurricane-force. A hook echo dropped off the backside of the storm and the storm's motion went to a near stand-still right in front of us. We were no more than 4 miles away! Winds were whipping at 15-20 sustained with much higher gusts, kicking up sand and pressing plants flat to the ground.

And then it happened: we saw a wall cloud begin to drop down, along with a funnel-shaped area of rotation. A tornado was trying to form less than 5 miles away! It sent chills up my spine and even knowing the proximity and power of this beast, I felt nothing but awe as the sky swirled above me.

The radar picture as I looked into a hook echo from ~3-4 miles away. You can make out my location on my cell phone screen as the blue circle, and the blue triangle is the direction I'm looking.

Sadly, the rear flank downdraft pulled in much colder air, and thus no tornado could form. The storm occluded, bringing the hook echo back into the storm and the updraft gradually weakened. Nonetheless, it was an incredible show - one that I will never forget. We headed to the hotel in high spirits, all uniformly spellbound.

We're rooming tonight in Big Spring, and conditions are looking favorable again for similar action tomorrow. At this point, anything is gravy. This Earth is an amazing, beautiful thing, and I am lucky to be alive to witness nature's greatness.

Day 2: 715 miles, my first mammatus clouds, and the smallest county in the US

Today was a roller coaster!

The day began with some optimism after the Storm Prediction Center upgraded the severe risk to Enhanced from Slight. Significant hail, damaging winds and some tornadoes were expected to pop over west Texas, far eastern New Mexico and perhaps a storm or two over western Oklahoma. Energy Helicity Indices were looking good, Lifted Index numbers were in the -10 to -11C range, CAPE was projected at over 5000 in the Midland area, and a dryline was moving eastward toward Carlsbad... it seemed too good to be true.

Since it was 511 miles to Midland from our base in OKC, we left early. Making good time on the fast and sparsely trafficked freeways, we were positioned in Odessa by 2pm.

The entire crew! Can you tell the winds were starting to pick up?

Storms were firing nicely along the dryline in eastern New Mexico, producing the first of over 200 damage reports today - but were moving at a snail's pace - even the severe-warned storms were moving at a scant 10-15 mph, and a stubborn inversion between 850-925mb remained in place as of the 18z sounding. At this point, our options were limited to another 4 hours headed back north in an attempt to catch some stronger stuff firing near the OK/TX border, or heading further west toward the NM storms.

Hoping to catch the dryline action, we went west.

My excitement grew as we neared a place on the map that has fascinated me for years - Loving County, TX. Less than 100 people live in the 670 square miles of arid, forsaken plateau just south of New Mexico and 75 miles west of Odessa. Stop lights? Yeah right. We traveled over 20 miles without seeing a house -  let alone a gas station, restaurant, or hospital. It was the least populous county in the United States as of the 2010 Census.

Dr. Brown was gracious enough to stop the van so I could get a picture at the county line! I'm standing on a pile of used tires (???) that were stacked to the right of the sign. For good measure, a severe thunderstorm is photobombing about 40 miles behind me!

As I was posing with the sign, I heard, "look!" We were nearing the outflow from a severe-warned thunderstorm to the west, and in the blowoff to our south were my first-ever mammatus clouds! This was, to put it mildly, breathtaking.

Mammatus clouds over Loving County, TX.

It was becoming clear that the dryline wasn't budging, though, and that meant the lifting mechanisms were not there to support continued strong convection. We circled back around to Midland, but skies were clearing and there was almost nothing on radar within 150 miles - essentially the entire area the SPC warned for an enhanced risk

We decided to call it a night, heading north with some disappointment to Brownfield, TX.

The story's not over yet, though. About 50 miles north of Midland we caught a wicked outflow boundary booking south at 35 or 40 mph from a complex of storms near the OK/TX border. It was just after sunset, and suddenly our van was hit with a violent shock while visibility instantly dropped to less than a quarter mile. Dust choked the air and wind gusts howled to what must have been at least 50mph! The van rattled and groaned as the wind shrieked by us in the pitch dark for the next 50 miles. What an ending.

Tomorrow things look just as iffy as today. We're positioned in a large area of Slight risk according to the SPC. We'll be on the road by 9am looking for trouble!

Good night from west Texas!

Day 1: Chasing Planes, and a Couple Storms

There is absolutely no work or business-related text message ANYONE wants to get at 2AM. Especially when that message informs you that your flight was delayed by 2 hours, and that you will miss your connecting flight due to the resulting delay. Your flight you were waking up for in two hours.

So began the saga of my 14-hour-airport day.

Instead of flying the sensible Tampa-Houston-OKC route, my only option was to be transferred on an unlikely vector through Chicago, bumped from first class (no refund) and delayed by five hours. My route was the airline equivalent of a Rube Goldberg machine.

Whoever invented this in-flight telemetry thing is my person. I was probably the only one on board watching mainly to see where the LCL and freezing layers were, though.

But was it ordained?

Just as with my NOLA/Austin drive (I discuss that in my previous post) I again felt the weather wanted me to get closer by some trick of fate. Less than an hour after my flight was re-routed, a Severe Thunderstorm Watch was posted for southern Iowa and northwest Illinois. Our flight would have to avoid the Mesoscale Convective System on its way to OKC.

If the severe turbulence on our 60-seat plane was any evidence, our pilot did a less-than-stellar job of doing that. At least I got some cool pictures in between trying not to squeal.

It's hard to see, but that's an impressive cumulonimbus anvil rising in the background ahead of a scattered (and much lower altitude) cumulus deck. Around this time the plane was shaking like a cold chihuahua.

After encountering two of my fellow chasers at the airport by chance, we met the rest of the group and gathered at our hotel. Our first day of chasing is tomorrow, likely to West Texas where we'll likely see some big hail... and with any luck, a tornado or two!

An overshooting top is visible near the wing's edge, probably 50 miles away. This complex of storms was being warned for severe thunderstorms at the time, and an overshooting top is indicative of a powerful updraft (and strong storm)

An introduction, an invocation

I'm already tired of traveling, and I fly out tomorrow.

I've spent the last week on the road. Two nights in New Orleans, two nights in Austin, TX, one night in Gainesville, one night in St. Augustine, and now tonight in Sarasota.

Your humble narrator got his picture with a Texas icon.

This was by design.

For my first out-of-state vacation in three years, I opted to roadtrip to Austin via NOLA to visit some of my girlfriend's family, while also seeing what Bourbon Street was all about. It was fantastic, but also involved 2,000 miles of driving, much of it through rain. What would be the odds that two meteorologists drive through a line of severe thunderstorms that produced a (likely) tornado through their home city just an hour after leaving?

Taken May 20, 2016. A nasty squall line near Lake City, FL. This squall line likely produced an EF0 tornado about 30 miles to the south around the time this picture was taken. (NWS has not yet confirmed)

Now I'm waking at 4am (7 hours from now, no big deal) to fly out to Oklahoma City to begin an epic adventure - 8 days chasing severe thunderstorms in the Great Plains.

I'll be shepherded by Mississippi's state climatologist and my research advisor, Dr. Mike Brown, and accompanying me will be another Ph.D student plus a number of other Master's students like myself. I point out the number of ostensibly knowledgeable people that will come along in attempt to head off the one of the three questions nearly everyone asks when I mention my trip:

"Isn't that like really dangerous?"

"Don't people die a lot doing that?"

"Do you have a will?"

(The answers, by the way, are 'it depends', 'no', and 'yes'.)

I'm flying out of Tampa to Houston, then connecting to OKC. My TPA-Houston flight is first class. I'm flying first class first of all because it was only $100 extra and there's no checked bag fee, and second of all because I'm worth it and I enjoy sneering at poor people why the hell not! It's my first time in a plane in three years so I anticipate more anxiety than is usual for someone of my age/gender during takeoffs and landings.

Once I get to OKC, I will be a nomad. The weather will dictate where we spend the 8 days following my arrival, with anywhere in the US between the Appalachians and the Rockies fair game. We will likely be in a different town every night.

If and when cool things start to happen, I will live stream from my Periscope account, @DanHenryWeather. You can also follow me for live-tweeted updates at the same place and if you really really dig me then you can also like my Facebook page. Thanks for reading, and here's to a stormy next week!