Day 2 recap and day 3

Yesterday was an interesting day, once again. Then again, I see all storm chase days as interesting. We left the hotel after a good night's sleep and set out with our initial target as Lawton, OK. Along the way we saw that there was a smattering of boundaries out there--some outflow, some a decelerating cold front--just south of Frederick. We thus redefined our target as just south of there in Texas. We got to Texas (first time for 3/5 of us!) and got there just in time for the first set of towers going up. We couldn't see them all that well, though, because there was a lot of low-level grunge around. But a couple of storms got organized around us, and we were in business. Soon the storm to our northwest got pretty powerful and the hail marker on GR was showing over 3 inches, which is usually a sign that a storm is making at least golf ball-sized ice cubes. Anyhow, the storm was struggling to stay in the warm air, as it had formed on the boundary but was being overtaken by it, so it was at times looking good and at times looking no so good. We were wondering if this storm was going to do anything when, farther west in better air, a storm rocketed up near Guthrie, TX. Because of the better moisture in place and the lack of destructive interference going on, we made the snap decision to go to that one. It soon looked rather impressive on RADAR, and we knew we had made the right call. Then the NWS dropped the severe thunderstorm warning on the storm. We then questioned our earlier decision, but the storms we had left were looking worse and worse, both visually and on RADAR. So we pressed on, and soon enough the warning was re-issued for the storm. We got close to it and it looked not bad, a sort of LP-type storm with a fairly tilted updraft and obvious hail core. Speaking of which, tennis ball-sized hail got reported with this storm south of Guthrie, so we knew it was a pretty good one.

Then one thing Justin and I had seen once before happened: pretty much right before our eyes, the storm evaporated. Poof, pretty much gone from great storm to nothing in about 20 minutes. Pretty impressive. We knew we were done for the day and therefore took off for our hotel in Childress, TX. Along the way, though, we had to stop to watch the eclipse which, if it wasn't total where we were, it was close. Justin got video of it which he tells me he will post at some point. Anyway, the eclipse was way cooler than I had ever imagined, and I think it was enhanced by the fact that it was low on the horizon and therefore we got an eclipse of the setting sun. All red and beautiful. I now see why people pay huge amounts of money to see eclipses.

A good day, and a bonus eclipse! **As I was writing this we got pulled over for speeding. The talk in the van unfortunately made us miss a slower speed limit sign, and we were caught going well over the speed limit. However, the policeman was pretty cool about it, first asking us where Manitoba is. He let us off with a warning. So to the anonymous policeman in Estelline, TX, thank you.**