Symmetry

Remember how I said in my last post that Sunday’s drive was the Exhibit A symbolizing the exhaustion and unpredictability of the storm chaser’s life?

Monday -- which turned out to be an incredibly eventful day -- was Exhibit B. Allow me to explain, in convenient timeline format!

7:12am: We depart our motel in Sterling, CO, after five hours’ sleep. Destination? Rapid City, South Dakota, to pick up two-fifths of our chasing crew. And of course, the whole reason we diverted Caryn and Barb to South Dakota instead of our DFW home -- the potential for an outbreak in South Dakota -- lies in the back of our minds. The Storm Prediction Center, though, downgraded the day just a little bit, showing a much smaller chance of tornadoes (below). We remain optimistic: they’re right a lot, but they’re wrong a lot, too. And we didn’t just drive 1000 miles for nothing.


8:01am: We cross into Nebraska. I’m reminded of the episode of South Park when the kids cross the Colorado/Nebraska state line, and a sign that says, “You’re In Nebraska. We’re sorry.” greets them. It’s like the Sahara, but with dead grass:


8:47am: We cruise through a tiny town called Gurley, Nebraska. Funny on its own, but even more hilarious when we see a water tower touting their high school mascot, the Warriors. Yes. That’s right. The Gurley Warriors.

10:57am: Getting closer to the Rapid City airport, and we find out that Caryn’s arrival is in serious jeopardy. Her first flight delayed, it’s unlikely that she’ll make her connecting flight in Chicago O’Hare. Bummer.

11:28am: By a stroke of luck, her connecting flight is delayed, too. She runs from terminal to terminal through O’Hare, arriving at her plane with about 17 seconds to spare. She’s now due to arrive only a half-hour late, and Barb is set to land on time. To quote Caryn, “Groovy!”

12:41pm: With a little time to kill, we decide to pay a visit to Mount Rushmore, only a little ways off of our Rapid City-bound route. Winding through the neighboring Custer State Park, and spot a herd of lazy buffalo:


Followed by a stone carving of some familiar faces, framed by a one-lane tunnel carved out of a giant boulder:


Nice.

2:20pm: We pick up Caryn and Barb at Rapid City. The crew is here! The bad news: Caryn’s baggage is not. Uh oh. We’ll deal with that later; it’s looking like action is going to start brewing near Pierre, South Dakota. Onward.

5:23pm: All that anticipation, all for naught. We hang out at a gas station near Belvidere, SD, spending a substantial amount of time throwing a football on a gravel parking lot, waiting for something -- anything -- to happen. We run into some fellow chasers, and we agree that the day is probably toast. Not a cloud in the sky. Almost all the necessary ingredients are there, but there’s just not enough heat where we are to spark anything.

Bummer. All that effort to get to drive a thousand miles and divert planes and lost luggage...for nothing?? We need beer.

But first, we hear that the tour company we used last year, along with Storm Chasers star Reed Timmer, etc., are in a neighboring town, also feeling sorry for themselves. We decide to drop say hey.

6:34pm: Now in a little town called Murdo, we run into Reed’s crew and spot our buddy Dave Holder leading the tour group again this year. Cruising in a new van (they needed it), they haven’t seen a whole lot this week. Like us, they’re getting ready for the impending outbreak predicted for Wednesday. Among other amenities, their van boasts an over-the-top paint job. And guess who’s silhouette is on the back of their van?


Yep, that studly shadow, the guy on the right, is me.

After chatting with the crew for a while, we head south, planning another long drive to Salina, Kansas.

8:26pm: One Bud Light and barbecue hoagie later, we check the weather, and are shocked to see three tornado warned cells have spawned near Rapid City. You know, where we were only 6 hours before. Rather than wait for the storm that might be there tomorrow, we decide to fly 2 hours west and catch the storm that exists today.

Around now, times began to get hazy, so I’ll abandon the timeline format from here...

We stop about 20 miles from the storm -- near the Nebraska/South Dakota border -- and get out of our Expedition for some amazing lightning shots. Seriously, there was a lightning strike about 5 times per second, certainly rivaling the most amazing display of nature I’ve ever seen. Example, though this doesn’t begin to do it justice:

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Unsatisfied, we cruise closer, perhaps 5 miles south of the storm, and see this amazing storm structure. That plume you see illuminated by lightning is called an “updraft tower”, which feeds moisture into the storm. If a tornado were to exist, it would be at the base of that plume:


Finally, still not quite satisfied, we rendezvous with the circulation (it’s still tornado-warned at this time), and get within a half-mile of the wall cloud/funnel cloud. This is just unreal:


It’s amazing: yesterday was starting to look just like the day before (15 hours’ driving), but ended up almost exactly reproducing our first chase day last year: disappointment, followed by the realization that something was going to happen while sitting in a restaurant, followed by a chase into the night of a low-level circulation illuminated by lightning. The symmetry was uncanny.

Thankfully, Tuesday will be a day of semi-rest, driving back southward through Nebraska and preparing for the outbreak on Wednesday. Here’s what SPC shows for tomorrow’s event:


That 45%? Kind of rare. Not high-risk rare probably, but still very promising. A prominent quote in a foreign movie I saw recently describes the anticipation felt by storm chasers everywhere: “Create excitement!”