Moving Targets

Before we get started, here’s a plug for a new website one of our guys put together, ExtremeVorticity.com! Watch our storm chasing posse on our live video stream as we hunt down a tornader. You should watch, not only for your own good, but also because in a roundabout way, we’ll somehow get paid for it.

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Storm chasing is nothing if not (1) ridiculously unpredictable and (2) absolutely exhausting. My experience today is your Exhibit A.

As of 1am last night, when I was falling asleep, our plans were all set: a small outbreak was due in western Oklahoma nudging down into northwest Texas, according to the Storm Prediction Center. Two of our chase crew (Barb the film editor from NoCal and Caryn the social worker from Milwaukee) had Monday plane tickets to DFW at the ready, and our remaining crew of three was to have ourselves a practice round.

We planned everything perfectly. Until we realized that we didn’t.

I awoke this morning at around 7, and perhaps the third thing I did was check the forecast for the day. All of a sudden, nothing (or very little) predicted for OK/TX, but a decent setup lasting a handful of days, hours upon hours away in South Dakota and Nebraska. For instance, Monday’s setup:


But what did all this mean for us? Stranded in Texas, we couldn’t leave our two lady chasers behind who were due to arrive Monday. And after we were scheduled to pick them up at around 1, it would take an entire day to get to our South Dakota target area, and we’d miss just about everything until Wednesday’s southern plains outbreak.

But dammit, we weren’t going to let our poor luck ruin our week. After all, most of us were forced to take five days’ vacation for this. Our bright idea: let’s just jet (and by jet, I mean drive forever and ever and ever) up to South Dakota today (and if necessary, overnight), and Caryn and Barb can change their flights to Rapid City instead of DFW. All we had to do was sacrifice our practice chase in Oklahoma (where nothing too crazy is happening anyway) and then drive a mere 15.5 hours to Rapid City by 1pm tomorrow.

Piece o’ cake.

So now we’re driving through some grassfire smoke near Childress, TX, which by the way, is one of the very most exciting parts of the state of Texas:


The good news? I constantly check my iPhone as my Mavs decisively sweep the hated LA Lakers by 36 points, perhaps the most enjoyable part of which was perennial benchwarmer Brian Cardinal hitting the record-breaking shot for most 3’s by a team in the NBA playoffs. (Thanks to my dad for reporting this very important fact to me.) Give me a little bit of the credit though, because I wore my Beat LA t-shirt today. Anyway, that certainly will make the next 13 hours easier to take.

And a wedge tornado tomorrow wouldn’t hurt either.