May 13, 1998

  • Day 2.
  • May 13, 1998
  • Lexington, Ky to Lexington, KY
  • ~350 miles.

    09:00

    The morning radar and surface indicated lttle or nothing for today. So we figured we would just drift west, into Missouri to be in position for the storms on Thursday. Our estimates said nothern plains, in northwestern Iowa. When we went out to the car, the day had that heavy, steel grey look. Both of us said it looked like storm weather, but all the reports said nothing. After a quick breakfast, we hopped into the car and drove west, towards Louisville.

    13:00

    We stopped for a break in a town called Corydon, the site of Illinois first state capitol, and of the only civil war battel field in Illinois.

    Talked with a man on a pilgramige. Said his great-grandfather was one of the first men over the battlements at the Corydon battle, but he didn't make it back over the confederate lines, so spent the next several years in various Union POW camps. Walked over to a glass factory, watched these guys in shirtsleeves dipping liquid glass onto metal poles, and color, and shape, and turn them by hand. Spooky to watch barehanded shaping of glowing glass, with wet wooden and leather hand tools.

    Back in the car, and the weather service announces a revised forecast, slight possibility of severe thunderstorms over east central Kentucky. But where is that? No towns, no ground knowledge is a handycap. Stop for a bite and a download at the same taco bell we hit on the trip out. Double back to Corydon, nothing on radar, but the clouds are forming. Weather radio dies, so we have no big picture.

    18:00

    Severe Thunderstorm Watch for Eastern KY. Chase clouds south, then back to Lextinton, big 200 mile circle. Check back into the same hotel, drop some luggage and drive 60 miles further east ( Got a new weather radio on the way) Alarms go off, we're 10 miles west of the severe thunderstorm warning. The lighning is wonderful, while each flash lasts only an eyeblink, there is a point when it seems as if there is more lightning than not. The landscape is flickering from light to dark, positive to negative and back.

    We hold up on a slight rise and sit back to watch the show. there is a supercell bearing down on us from the northeast and we will need to cut across about thirty miles of it to get back to Lexington, and the hotel. On the way back a second thunderstorm warning goes off, about 10 miles northeast of our westward run. We punch through another cell on the way back, and it trips a third severe thunderstorm warning as we get out of it.

    In general, punching through a severe storm is a bad idea. The visibility drops to zero, the winds, rain, and hail make driving interesting, and the winds frequently cause trees to fall down. So the rule is don't punch through. But it's been a long time, and we had to get back to the hotel anyway.

    May 19, 1998

  • Sioux City, IA to Newton, IA
  • 395 Miles

    09:00

    We left Sioux city, after driving downtown to get some real coffee. We saw a coffee shop yesterday, next to the brewpub where we had lunch. The Storm Prediction Centers 1 day convective maps were off line, so I used the Weather Channel's severe weather map for the day's prediction. The current attempt uses the intersection of the severe weather zone and the 50/60 degree dew point lines. The predicted target was about 50 miles south of Des Moines, Iowa; so it was into the car and onto the road.

    We drove south to Omaha/Council Bluffs, and decided that Iowa is a state designed for storm chasers. The freeway rest-stops have monitors that run loops showing current radar, surface conditions, and watches and warnings. Oh, yeah they also show raod delays and other stuff too. The radar showed a good-sized storm coming up out of Missouri, moving to the north-east. We continued down to Council Bluffs, and turned east onto 680.

    12:00

    We checked again about 50 miles down the road, and there were no watches or warnings, and the storms were weakening. The day was humid, but there weren't any cumulus clouds. Instead there was the same thick haze, obscuring everything.

    Since our target area was south, we cut south off I-80 about 70 miles west of Des Moines. We had a great lunch (Louise had the pot roast blue plate special, and I had a great chicken sandwich and potato salad) in Atlantic, IA, and tried to get the convective data from the SPC. But we could not get a solid connection, so we decided to go north, and take advantage of the state of Iowa's radar rest stops. The radar showed that the southern storms had dissipated, but that there was a major super cell over Debuque. Even better, the NWS popped a severe thunderstorm watch over eastern Iowa, and northern Illinois. We continued east.

    15:00

    When we arrived in Des Moines, there were a few patches of small cumulus clouds, the first we had seen all day. We pulled into a wal-mart for a download. So far on the trip, we had a 6/7 success rate doing downloads from Wal-Marts, and less than 50/50 at other sites. Wal-marts always have good cell connections for some reason - Louise thinks that the same demographics that indicate a market for a Wal-Mart are the same as those for a successful cell. Wal-mart failed us - we could not get a good data connection. At the same time that we were disconnecting, the first warning popped. During the fifteen minutes we were trying to connect, the few puffy clouds had developed into explosive thunderheads.

    18:00

    We flirted with the storms for the next three hours, and were less than 2 miles away from the tornado when we ran into the police roadblock. It is probably just as well, since the tornados were buried in thick downpours (over 3.5 inches in some spots), so there were no sight lines. It would have been very risky to get much closer. We'll count this as a near miss. More weather tomorrow.

    May 20, 1998

  • Newton, IA to Lawrence, KS
  • 400 Miles

    09:00

    Woke up to severe thunderstorm warnings over Des Moines, and Newton. Had to delay the downloads to avoid risking the equipment to power surges. Pulled in the latest data, and the SPC has a long wide band stretching from Western Montana to Virginia Beach. The fronts look good across the center of the country, so what to do? We finally target north western Missouri, and hit the road.

    As we pull south out of Des Moines, there is a severe thunderstorm warning over Warren County. We decide that these will dissipate as the morning progresses, and go with our prediction. It is hard to watch the thick black clouds massing in the rear view mirror, with little or nothing in front of us.

    13:00

    We stopped for lunch in Lamonie, IA. A little town off I-35, the home of the reformed church of latter day saints, the ones who got along with their neighbors. The Cattleman's association was doing an 'Eat more Cows' promo. Good food.

    16:00

    We're in St. Joseph, MO. There is nothing happening in the sky. We tour the Pony Express Museum, and grab coffee at a 'Common Grounds' coffee shop. They are a fundamentalist, constitutional, commune thingie.

    After coffee, the weather radio, suggests that things are happening further south, so we head for Kansas City. After several false starts, it is now 7pm, and we're near Lawrence, KS. Several storms have started up, but faded away. Time to call it a night, and get a global picture.

    Send E-mail
    Last Updated: 16 Apr 1998