Definitely better than Saturday. Almost felt like a backyarder as I got to travel a lot of the same roads as I did back on June 4th of 2005 with the Hiawatha, KS torn. Anyhow, after dinging around in the Squaw Creek NWR, I headed down to Hiawatha to wait for the short wave and vort max to arrive from western KS. Stopped at the same gas station as I did on 5-4-3 and 6-4-5 only to find out it has become a victim of the economy. Chasers took over the place using the abandoned canopies as shade while waiting. I took up a spot way in the back as I was really trying to stay focused on making the most of the day. Randy Cooper came over and introduced himself. Nice guy. Chatted for a bit about the Kirksville day. During our conversation, he mentioned Scott Currens was there. Scott and I traded chase vids a couple of years ago and it would have been nice to meet face to face but it just didn't work out.
Anyhow, when the first two sups formed I jumped on the southern cell as I was playing the bet it would be the right turner tornadic storm while the northern cell would be the left turner and produce the big time hail. Eventually this is the way it played out but it took forever. My condolences to the guys who got stuck in the 4" stones by the river crossing in Rulo, NE. The same thing damn near happened to me there back in 2005. It was fun to follow the same cell for 4 1/2 hours regardless!
Plan for today is to get my carcass moving for the long drive out to north east Colorado. Front range fun finally.
3 comments:
Nice Bill glad you had a good time down there and didnt get cored. Still waiting to here back from all the MN chasers to see if everyone is ok, or at least their vehicles.
Can only imagine what yesterday would have been like with better surface winds, obviously much better.
Good luck today out in CO.
My goodness you picked a good week to go. Tomorrow looks Epic.
Someone over at ST said they measured a 5.25" stone. Biggest we saw was between 2.75-3.00" around Oregon, MO when we saw Tony Perkins and crew on the side of the road looking at the hail.
We must've just missed you before initiation. In fact, I think we drove past you near Hiawatha, you were heading east bound.
I didnt get a whole lot of good pics, but then again we didnt see a whole lot of cool things to take pics of. Hope you get a nice TOR this week, looks like it may stay active. I think the chaser circus will be gone for the most part too, atleast compared to yesterday.
Post a Comment