This was likely the last day of chasing for my season. Things were hopeful as we left this morning. A long grind from Valentine south to North Platte. Then east to Grand Island. We go a good start so we had time to gas up, feed up and rest up while watching and waiting. It was a tough day to target a location where the cap would likely break but we thought we made the right choice when we saw the Cloud Nine folks drive up. We enjoyed killing time with the group and had another pleasant conversation with Charles Edwards. Once the 3pm update came out we all broke west going our separate ways.

We ended up going all the way back to North Platte and dropped into the NWS. The front stalled. Storms turned into another line of crap. Huge disappointment. Season's done for me I'm afraid.

We landed in Kearney NE. Tomorrow we'll take our time heading back to Omaha. Tough year...

Posted by at 10:47 PM | Permalink

Nothing worth getting excited about today. Typically Joel and I will meet first thing in the morning to review the SPC forecast and regional forecast discussions. We know right away if we're going to have a game day or not. Today we took one look at the data, then a look at each other and decided to go back to our rooms for a nap. We've been driving long and hard day after day. We're both pretty wiped out. Should have slept in today.

We met around 2:00 and decided to do some local sightseeing. It sure looked like fun, but neither one of us had the energy to go rafting. Instead we decided to go for a leisure drive west to Merriman. (about an hour's drive west) to check out the Bowring Sandhills Ranch.

Posted by at 9:46 PM | Permalink

This morning we got off to a great start and our target held steady. Central and North Central Nebraska. Unfortunately the setup wasn't quite right. The Curse of '06 strikes again.

Landed in Valentine,.. again (there aren't many places to crash in Cherry County NE). And the good folks at the Holiday Inn Express give us a decent rate for a decent room. We managed our disappointment with another great steak at the Pepermill.

Day 2 has us sitting right here. If anything is going to happen we don't need to go far. Managing my expectations I refuse to get excited.

Posted by at 8:55 PM | Permalink

Seeing as we needed to get north we decided to take the scenic rout today up through Colorado. Target for day 2 is Valentine NE so we decided to stick to the foothills and not go up into the mountains (tough call).

Mt. Capulin — an ancient volcano — came highly recommended so we made that our first stop. As promised the view was impressive. With clear air all around — under a modest cover of high based convection — we could see for miles in every direction. A brief stop at the visitor center filled us in on the history of lava flows and made the view that much more impressive. Once on top we decided to make the mile long hike around the rim (the most exercise I've had in weeks). We made it about 1/2 way around when a modest storm came across the mountain and had us reconsidering our decision to hike. Getting wet was one thing. But the evidence of a lightning strike on a mountaintop bench gave a clear message. This is not a place to sit and watch a storm. It only took one clap of thunder to move us along in a hurry.

We struck on up into SE Colorado and decided to drive up through the Comanche Grasslands. I had driven south through that area last year and convinced Joel it was worth seeing again. We paused a few times along the way to watch and photograph a high based storm. Eventually making the decision to move as far north as possible. We drove on into the evening and landed in Fort Morgan CO.

Tomorrow the SPC has a "slight risk" somewhere around South Dakota and central Nebraska. It's hard to get hopes up, so I wont. But we came to play so we'll make the best of it. Target: Valentine NE.

Posted by at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Slight risk in our area today so we decided to stay put and book another night at the hotel. We hung out in town. Got a nice tour of the old town hall, did some laundry and and had pleasant send off lunch for Warren's client Dan.

As bad as this trip has been for storms, the people you meet along the way can sometimes make up for the disappointing weather. Of course there were the colorful locals we met last night, a pleasant woman at the laundry mat who filed us in on local scuttlebutt, and during our visit to the old town hall I had a really interesting conversation with Charles Edwards from Cloud Nine Tours. Turns out that he works for FEMA when he's not driving chase tours. He had some amazing things to say about working the front lines of Katrina. He and his tour were stuck in town with a broken axle so Joel offered to drive him down to Amarillo to pick up a rental. More conversation on the ride down and a pleasant meal in Amarillo. It was a good deed done well. Very interesting guy. Look forward to meeting him again down the road.

Posted by at 11:16 PM | Permalink

Forecast held up this morning so we marched up into South Eastern Colorado. I always enjoy chasing there. Even though I've had little success at catching tornadoes (It's been 5 years since I've scored one up there). But the upslope winds always fire some beautiful storms in the foot hills and beyond.

We typically end up racing out of Amarillo, through Boise City (never forgetting to stop at No Man's Land for some fine Beef jerky) then racing north through Springfield, Lamar or further. Inevitably we'll backtrack, deciding late in the afternoon to go after the southern storms in north east New Mexico. Seems like we do this every time and today was no exception. There were several promising storms all over the region but nothing to get very excited about. We ended up back through Boise City and into New Mexico. Finishing our chase with a very strange Gust Front. Yet another bust for '06.

We landed in "historic" Clayton New Mexico and decided to cap off our bust with dinner and beers at the Eklund hotel and saloon. An excellent choice as the evening turned out to be a highlight of an otherwise frustrating chase season. The place was filled with cowboys (real ones) and storm chasers from all over the globe. Not to mention the colorful locals. One in particular, who could use a few piano lessons... guess you had to be there.

After last call, as we were making our way out the door, we stopped to check out some old pictures hanging in the bar. A series of gruesome photos of a public execution from the turn of the century. The locals seemed to take a certain amount of pride in telling us the legend of Black Jack Ketchum.
One fellow even offered to take us on a midnight tour of the "hanging place" and a trip to Black Jack's grave site as well. How could we resist?

Posted by at 8:23 PM | Permalink