Storm Chase Day 1

For all of you who do not know, I left this morning from Starkville to go on a two week storm chasing trip.  I am with seven other students and two professors–packed in a 15 passenger van.  We left this morning about 9 am and ended up in Fort Smith, Arkansas this evening.  That’s one of the things I am most excited about on this trip: not knowing where I will be sleeping that night.  

The plan for tomorrow is to get up early and drive west to Oklahoma City and then south to Wichita Falls, Texas.  (Yes, that is quite a distance!)  Notice the slight risk of severe weather in the green circle below.  (This is issued by the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.)  That green circle is our target area. 

Yes, it would be nice to see tornadoes, but tomorrow’s setup doesn’t look overly impressive for that.  We still may get some nice supercells.  Hey, it just takes one good storm to make for a good chase day…and even the days where nothing happens when things are “supposed to,” you can learn the most, so I am very excited either way.

Saturday’s best locations for severe weather are roughly in the same area, so we won’t have to travel quite as much tomorrow night/Saturday. 

I’m sure I won’t write every day, but I hope to update a good bit.  You can constantly track our location be clicking here and looking at the image on the right.  That site will also be routinely updated. 

 Instead of getting up early to have a weather briefing about the chase-day setup (we have to drive a lot!), we got together in one of the hotel rooms to discuss. 

And now I am going to the pool!