Pecos Hank

5.01.18 Storm Chase Report / Bounce Time

Added 2018-05-02 14:15:04 +0000 UTC

May 01, 2018 Storm chase report:

For five fighting hours I was snuggled up with this storm... Except the 3 minutes it dropped a tornado. 99 good decisions and 1 not so good choice of a road knocked me a mile out of bounds right when this monster made the scene. Here I'm looking through a mile of core hail and rain at a large tornado. The T.I.T. was punished on this chase. Cracks all across the windshield and something's knocked out of alignment. Out here the gravel and silt roads turn into cement on your wheels. The result is a lot of unbalanced wobbling at 60 mph+. Often a good pressure spray will cure that. Hopefully that is the problem.

NO SPRITES:

After the lights went out, I positioned to capture red sprites and blue jets (relatively new lightning discovered shooting 50 miles out of the tops of thunderstorms into space). Anyway, the moon was too bright, so no go. This landed me in Great Bend Kansas around 1am. All the cheap hotels where booked up and I'm not spending y'alls hard earned $100 to sleep 6 hours... So, I slept in motel Toyota last night like a baby.

TODAY's OUTLOOK:

Another round of storms similar to yesterday's episode is expected. I'll likely be targeting Western OK and southern KS. The express lube here in Great Bend got 1.5 stars on google. Crossing fingers.

COWBOY PROVERB:

Life ain't about how fast you go and how high you climb, It's about how well you bounce.