Predictions: None
First day on the road, got a late start. Just cruised down 81 aiming
for Tennessee.
Tested out the antenna mount, a mess of PVC Tubing bolted onto the
roof rack.
On top of that is a bright blue Party bowl from Bed Bath and Beyond.
It protects the
three antennae from rain and hail.
So far it rides well, but it does increase the wind resistance, but we'll have to live with that.
Spent some time upgrading the software, we correctly read the data from
the lightning system, but can't display it effectively.
It is turning out to be tricky to correctly geolocate real-time lightning
strikes from a moving vehicle.
Predictions: Not Made
It seems to be a rule. The first day or two that we leave Virginia for
the trip, Virginia gets hit. In this case there were storms all over and
a monster in Maryland.
We could have stayed home.
But we had a good day, and a bad day. We had significant hardware problems.
The USB splitter seems to want to send signals that the computer interprets
as mouse commands. So when we fire it up, the cursor goes nuts, moving
and clicking, until we unplug the USB device. This is not going to work.
We collect some lightning data from east of Knoxville, and then stop
at a mall to see if we can replace the USB splitter. While we're in the
mall a Tornado warning pops for Knoxville. We're bad in the car just in
time to get stuck in a traffic jam while being pelted with rock-hard, quarter-sized
hail. No way to catch the storm, and nothing touches down out of it, anyway.
But we did get to test the Party bowl on hail. Works fine. Crash in a motel
on the west side on knoxville, after finding a Comp-USA to replace some
hardware. We also got to test the data recorder. Had over 2800 lightning
strikes in a twenty minute run. Then the program locked up. Oh well, back
to the debugger.
Prediction: Crossett, AR
Decided to dive south, then cut west to aim for the Arkansas / Louisiana
Border. Looks good for storms along the I-20 corridor. First long day of
driving, need to do near 500 miles to get into position. Along the way,
we code improvements into the software. Literally. We're doing pair-programming
at 70mph down the freeway. Perhaps not the most effective technique, but
it does make use of time.
Pull into a rest-stop in Alabama to change over the wiring on
the GPS. We now have the lightning system feeding data into Com1, and the
GPS going through a USB-2-PDA adapter as Com6. The software now calculates
the actual position of the car as we're driving, dispalys the heading information
from the digital compass, and displays range and bearing to the lightning
strikes as they hit. Next problen: the range seems off. We were driving
West on I-20 at 70mph, outside Tusgaloosa. The weather radio is reporting
a severe storm over Butler, about 60 miles South. The Bearing is
perfect, but the Boltek says the storms are 150 miles away. For the moment
we code in the Famous Gunderson Correction Factor (FGCF) and tomorrow we
will have to do a calibration run. The current plan is to go find a good
storm. Get right in it path, and let it run over us. Recording detailed
data about the actual location of the storm, and comparing that with the
reported distance.
Well, enough for one day. Sleep in a little town in Missouri, sleazy
motel, great neighborhood restaurant. Rib-eye steak I cut with a butterknife,
hand dredged catfish fillets that melt in your mouth. Bo-Ro's Family Restaurant
in Newton MS. Yum.
Prediction: Brinkly, AR
Nice drive in the morning, got off the freeway and buzzed along the blue roads. Really agressive drivers in Mississippi, not mean, they just want to get where they're going. Driving down little two-lane roads, twisty-turny, no sightlines. CAr in front of you only doing 65? Just pass it on this blind turn.
Storms started popping early today. We added an email alert to the cell phone. It sends us notification about storms we are interested in StormNow . Got 25 severe thunderstorm and tornado messages in the first hour. Information overload at 70mph.
Got to Batesville about noon, planned to head west to Arkansas. Nice little storm rolled over about 1pm, had tons of lightning, and a weak lowering base. Used it to try to calibrate the lightning detector. About 2 hours ( and 70 miles away) the same s torm had a radar detected 'developing tornado over Randolph, MS'
Drove like made, but the storm was moving at 50mph, and even using Mississippi drive rules, we got no closer than about 30 miles. Very dissapointing. Even worse, our prediction was a bust, lots of storms, but no tornadoes.
Got back to Batesville for the night, checked into an Amerihost, and we must have looked bedraggled. All they had left were double beds and the Jacuzi Suite. Got the Jacuzi for the price of a regular room. What a change from last night. Found a nice li ttle rib place, had a rack and sat talking with the waitress til closing. She had lived in Canyon City, CO for a while so we spent the night swapping mountain stories. Very nice end to the day.
Wandered north from Batesville, mostly making miles on the freeway. This is not the way we prefer to travel, but it does cover the distance. Stopped at a Flying-Jtruck stop along the way, and used an internet kiosk there to get a long view. Unfortunate ly we couldn't get a connection from the hotel in Batesvile. REprogrammed the email delivery system to simplify the messages we are getting (and cut down the air time).
The first Tornado watch poped about 1pm for east of us, so we recrossed the mississippi at Cape Girardeaux into Illinois. We seem to cross this bridge at least once on every storm chasing run. Ran into Southeastern Illinois tail chasing a couple of sto rms, but there were moving fast to the east so it was really just for practice.
About 5 we figured we'd head back west, to position for tomorrow. IT looks to be a slow day (famous last words), so this year we will try to visit the leadmines at Bon Terre. Passed through Chester, IL and had to stop to visit the home of Popeye the s ailor man. Pretty little town on the bluffs of the Mississippi, where the inventor of Popeye was born, and where Popeye came to life in a community playhouse.
Crossed the Big Muddy River, and then crossed the Mississippi, and a new Tornado Watch was popped for SE Missouri. First time we will sleep in TW on the trip, probably not the last. Got a hotel in Festus, but the night was not over. A severe thundersto rm was bearing down on the next town up, so we went out to let it roll over us, and see what the lightning detector does. Not impressed. We're parked on top of a hill with lightning all around. Closest hits recorded were 45 miles away. The car must be dam ping the strike wavefront. We'll talk with the mfg, on the 2nd.
Got stuck in a 1hour traffic jam trying to cover the last 6 miles to the hotel. Caused by a combination of a nasty accident, stalled cars, and construction. HIt a restaruant around 10pm, and went to sleep.
Prediction: None Made
The activity looks to be fairly far south, so rather than race, we'll take it easy. Four years ago when we passed this way we saw a lead mine that offered tours and boat rides. The mine is flooded, and the lower levels are open for scuba diving. We decided to go there this time. Last time we arrived half an hour after the last tour, and had to leave the next day for storms.
We arrived at the Bonne Terre Lead mine about 11:00, the parking lot was empty, but the sign said open. We went in and the guy behind the counter said we could start right away. As he was giving us the history of stuffing mules into a mining bucket to be lowered 120 feet into the mine, when another couple arrived, so there were four for the tour.
We went down the 68 steps to the top level of the mine, and stood in a huge gallery with a 30 to 40 foot ceiling held up by 20 foot diameter pillars. At one point, there is a wooden trap door in the ceiling, that leads to the basement of the Town Hall, and was used to air condition the building. As we went down to the deeper levels, we reached the flooded areas, below us was another 200 feet of mine, all under water, all the equipment, the buildings, and the tools exactly as they were put down by the miners 30 years ago.
Next stop: the Missouri Dept of Natural Resources Mining Museum. Anywhere else this collection of abandoned industrial buildings would have been torn down. Here they are slowly ( as funds become available) restoring the equipment and repairing the buildings. We talked for a couple of hours with the staff, discussing the economics, the environmental issues, and had a great time.
Finally it was time to call it a day. We headed south, and went through Poplar Bluff, which had been hit by a tornado last week. Still numerous signs of major damage. Trees dropped on houses and sheds. One house lifted off its foundations, not by the wind but by the rootball of the tree that went over next to it.
Pulled into Sikeston MO, and checked into the Drury Inn. This place looked really familiar somehow. Something about the layout of the parking lot, and the buildings nearby. Finally it hit me: in 2000 we had pulled into this same parking lot after a frustrating run back from Paducah KY, and a funnel went across the freeway in front of us. As we checked in to the Pear tree the Service Master building behind the hotel exploded.
Had a great talk with a couple from Indiana, who have a brother in C'ville - small world. Went to dinner at Lambert's (home of throwed rolls, see 2000 for details) and went to sleep.
Prediction: Shreveport, LA
Long drive through fog and rain. Rivers near flood stage, rice paddys under water, grey and dismal. Worse, no storms to speak of. Got to the texas Louisiana border and everything dissolved into nothing. A long run for no real gain. But that's chasing: long periods of boredom, occasionally puctuated with brief moments of terror.
Checked into a Days Inn, and asked about a good place to eat. We were told to go to Ralph and Kacoos. Excellent food, louise had a catfish and crabmeat dish that was exceptional. I had crawfish etouffe. Life is good. Better casing tomorrow.
Prediction: San Saba, TX
This is one of those really frustrating days. A low probability prediction that is a looong way way. We could drive like mad for over 400 miles, probably get there after sunset, and have nothing pop. Or we could take it easy, and then kick ourselves if anything spins up. Because we'd tell ourselves that we would have caught that one. So we decide to take it easy based on two things: first the expected value is low for this run, and second, we're not really desperate yet. We position for anything that spins up early, we target Waco, or a little north so that we can catch the storms when they come out of the hill country.
We check in to the hotel in Hillsboro early, do some laundry, and catch up on housekeeping. The tornado watch areas pop right on schedule, covering our predicted targets, and we wait to see if anything spins. So far the only tornado warnings tonight are in Kansas -- Kansas? Where did that come from?
Time for dinner, and try the lightning detector off the car to see if the range corrects.
Prediction: Childress, TX
Left Hillsboro about 9:00, up through Ft. Worth and onto 287. If we just kept driving on this piece of pavement we'd end up back in Denver. Listening to the commercial radio weather which says next to nothing about bad weather this afternoon, and the NOAA weather radio, which is warning about significant threat of strong to violent storms around sunset.
According to NOAA, 95% of the country is covered by weather radio, but we loose the signal a little north of Fort Worth, and don't pick up anything until Wichita Falls, and then loose it again. We won't have any significant coverage again until Amarillo.
When we get to Childress about 4pm we have a choice. We are now in position, but we need to target a storm. We have little or no data to go on, so we head north towards I-40. It seems like there is an even field of possible spots, and wherever it pops, it will be the focus of significant storms.
We're about 50 miles east of Amarillo when things pop. Unfortunately, it is southwest of Amarillo so we cut West, and then south. We're on 207, about 25 miles southeast of Amarillo, when the storm spins up and does severe damage and injuries at Happy, TX (probably 30 miles away). We're on the wrong side of a very violent storm (2 dead, 5 injuries).
We drop behind the storm and track it for 50 miles to Memphis, TX. Just ahead of us all the lights are out, trucks are on their sides, and debris is all over the road. We pause briefly to watch what looks like a funnel about 5 miles north of the road. It is now 9:30 - 10:00 so we can only see the storm by lighting flash. Not really good.
Driving through the aftermath, we deal with the one of the issues of storm chasing. While many of the storms travel over open country, doing little or no damage, storms like this one cause huge damage, injury, and heartbreak. Being on the scene brings up feeling of responsibility, culpability, and unease. Are we profiting from the misery of others?
Prediction: Childress, TX
30% probbility of storms, so we drift north and east into Oklahoma. Take it easy, work on the software on the road. Follow big chunks of Route 66 through Oklahoma.
Stop at diner in Clinton, OK. Order steak sandwiches by picking up the phone at the table. Huge slabs of chicken fried ground steak, Louise got fried corn on the cob - in this they batter and fry everything. (Louise's comment - I thought fried corn on the cob was a brilliant idea, and it was good) Possibly the perfect road meal - Del Rancho restaurant, on Old Route 66 in Clinton, OK.
Spent some time in the route 66 museum, almost wants to make me take a road trip, oh wait, we are.
It became apparent that the only storms would be in Kansas, 300 miles away, so we picked a hotel out of triple A and got some rest.
Prediction: Salina, KS
Another long, and somewhat frustrating day. We left Weatherford late, after the car refused to start. We wore the battery down running the lightning tracking equipment over night. Got a jump from the people at the hotel, and hit the road - if you ever find yourself in Weatherford, stay at the Best Western, great rooms, very nice people.
Our target was Salina, but by the time we got to Wichita is was apparent we needed to be further south than that. We went a little west, to Hutchinson and waited a bit. About 4:30 the storms started to form, and we set our sights on getting south of a nice thunderstorm forming over Pratt. As we dove south, it caused some damage in Pratt (still unclear if it was tornadic) and the storm moved east.
By 6:00 we were aware that the storm was moving more slowly than we thought. The back edge was still west of us, and we were punching through the core. Massive rain, 2" an hour was causing flooding on the back roads we were traveling, and the doppler indicated tornado was totally wrapped in the rain. We cut west to try to clear the back edge and get some sightlines. Outside the town of Conway Springs we got caught in a major wind event, probably 60 mph. We pulled over with several other cars, including another chaser. He later reported that there was a small vortex that generated the wind, but we can't confirm it.
By 8:00 the first round was over, and we hadn't seen anything. We went up to Wichita to call it a night, when the second round hit, following the same track, a series of severe thunderstorms heading directly for Wichita. So, we zipped across the street to "Red, white and Blues", had some barbeque, and sat and watched the lightning creep closer. About midnight we shut the equipment down, ran through the rain to get back into the hotel. There was a tornado on the ground about 25 miles west, heading for us, but it was expected to dissipate before it got to us. The rain was coming down so hard, the window in the hotel room was leaking, and thirty feet outside the leaking window was a small creek, that was over its banks, and creeping closer.
So we went to sleep. No solid tornadoes sighted, a long day where we were just a little out of position, or a little late.