Flickr Account

I set up a Flickr account so I could post some of my pics from the trip so follow the link and enjoy. The link is listed below so just copy it and paste it in the address bar and go.

fabernotch

http://www.flickr.com/photos/96256566@N00/

The End of the Road

Well this is it the final chapter in a long and well traveled journey across our great country. We saw several storms along the way but the ultimate elusive weather marvel, the tornado, was not to be seen on this trip. Overall the reason for the lack of severe storms in the plains was a ridge of high pressure that set up over the plains. This ridge is essentially an overpass which allows the storms to pass over the plains just as we pass over roads on the interstate. We need the opposite of an overpass or even a flat road to get the storms into position fire up and become severe. We certainly tried to get atop around and near the top of the ridge or overpass to see some severe storms but the cards were not in our favor. However, we covered almost 6000 miles of the plains including 12 states: Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Iowa, and Missouri. We saw some of our countries greatest national parks, historic landmarks, premiere weather organizations, unique restaurants and had a great deal of fun along the way. Finally, I would like to thank Ryan and Gina Wade our chase leaders and instructors for doing their level best to get us on all the storms that fired across the plains and I am always impressed by their expertise in model analysis and their ability to be the first on any storms that fire up. Kudos!!! Thanks also to the parents, friends, and loved ones who have followed our quest, made comments on the blogs, and have been patient with having your loved ones away from you. It has been loads of fun and I leave you with a couple of my favorite pics. I bid you all farewell as we have returned and are back home

fabernotch

PS-I may start a Flickr account to share more pics from the trip so I will keep y'all posted.

Day Nine

The models and convective outlooks for today looked fairly bleak in the way of any storm development in our neck of the woods. We had an standing invitation to tour the National Weather Center in Oklahoma City once we came out to the plains and this was the day to call in that favor. Dr. Kevin Kloesel, Assistant Dean of the University of Oklahoma College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, took us on a tour that was extremely informative, fun, and as weather nuts this was the Holy Grail of severe weather related organizations. The National Weather Center houses the Norman, Oklahoma Weather Forecasting Office, the National Severe Storms Laboratory, the Storm Prediction Center, and The Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies just to name a few. We spent a good part of the day touring the NWC and had lunch in the building at their food court which contained an actual brick oven for pizzas and other baked Italian dishes, it was delicious. After giving our thanks and good-byes to Dr. Kloesel and the NWC we went down the road to the National Cowboy and Heritage Museum and saw paintings, historic guns, saddles, western wear and oddly enough as you can see from the picture I caught a picture of a tornado on camera. =) So, with my funny play on words finished and with the dying laughter ( i hope), we are camping out in Mesquite, TX. to stay the night and recharge for the next day's adventures.

fabernotch

A Geographer's View, Thursday, May 17

Good Morning! I feel like I should be saying "Captain's log, start date ?" The bottom pic is the building where we spent many wonderful hours yesterday with Dr. Kloesel. Even though it sits on the OU campus, it houses federal and many other agencies. We saw the Storm Prediction Center, where we get some of our info from for our briefings. They have a very unique lighting system. The Norman, OK National Weather Service office is there. Not to mention OU's School of Meteorology. We had a blast! They have everything, including the kitchen sink and, Dr. Kloesel admitted, were very well of when it came to meteorology toys! We even have pics of something no other storm chase team has, but I will tell you that tomorrow! Suspense is a good thing! Then we headed to the National & Western Heritage Museum. The top pic shows LeeAnn (right), Julio (center) and Tiffany (left) enjoying a visit to the local church of the Old West. We left there to head to Dallas, where we crashed at a Comfort Suites. We truly had a most informative and wonderful day! Take care, Sherall

A Geographer's View, day ?????

One thing about vacations, time goes quickly, but you never know what day it is! We left Rapid City, my most favorite staying location this entire trip! and headed east towards Iowa. I don't remember much of the trip, as I was catching up on some much-needed beauty sleep, but the others said it was pretty much the same as some of the other states we had been in. Iowa was a change in scenery, not only landscape, but sky too! We saw the most beautiful lightning show in an anvil cloud! And the biggest mosquitoes since Texas! We then headed southwest to St. Joseph, Missouri for the night. What a depressing hotel! Boy did we miss our HoJo in Rapid City! The day dawned with low clouds and light rain, not what we came chasing for. After checking for severe weather, our fearless leaders were depressed! Nothing on the horizon that we could chase for several days. So a quick call to a friend at University of Oklahoma, and we have a tour set up for OU and the National Weather Service. Thank you Dr. Kevin Kloesel! We have looked forward to this since the end of March, after you came to our symposium! Not sure where we are headed, as we haven't been briefed yet. Maybe the dry line of Texas? The picture above was taken by our very own LeeAnn outside of Billings, MT, during out hail storm. It is probably my favorite pic of the entire trip! See ya, Sherall

Hello from Donald

I am a self-proclaimed weather geek. I love this stuff. I can see why Ryan and Gina are in love with the Great Plains when it comes to chasing storms. It is an amazing place.
We have not chased your classic supercell thunderstorms with amazing striations and tornadoes, but the ones we have chased have been a sight to see. You can see for miles in these areas so you do not have to get so close to the storms to get a good vantage point. The Wades have done such a great job finding the locations where the storms are going to fire and getting us in position to chase them and watch them evolve.
This has been one of the greatest experiences in my life. I have seen sights I have never seen and been to places I thought I would never go. We have seen the United States at its best and it has a lot to offer.
Hello to everyone back home. We are all still doing well. We have logged more than 4,000 miles and have a few more to go.

Day Eight

Today was mainly a travel day that turned into a late evening chase. We started out in Rapid City, deja vu, and headed east along I-90 and crossed the entire state and dropped onto some storms once we crossed into Iowa. It was a race against these fast moving storms and we would have loved to stop in Des Moines to say hello to Gina's aunt but we had to drive on and keep following the storms south. They started to lose there punch as the daylight disappeared but we got an impressive light show out of it. So, not a long post as per my usual but it was a day spent mainly tyring to get into position. We ate dinner just as we passed into Missouri and went a bit further down the road where we have shacked up for the night in St. Joseph, MO.

Thanks to Rapid City for three nights of comfy hotel rooms and thanks to all of you for reading =)

fabernotch

Added some landscape pics from South Dakota.