(In a Morgan Freeman voice) – When we last heard from Ryan, He and Kyle had decided not to travel to Eastern Oklahoma for Oklahoma Tornados
Monday – Day 6, continued
Eastern Oklahoma is known as the jungle. It is hilly, full of tree’s, and can be a dangerous place to view tornado’s. The night before we asked Sean what it was like, he confirmed what we knew and agreed we might want to look for another target. That meant finding a target with less probability of a tornado, but we were o.k with that.
Off to the library we went, and I got a lesson in hand drawn analysis.
We found some potential just North of Enid, so took short drive. Soon a Supercell was calling our name in the area a short drive across the border into Kansas. We got on it, found a good position, and I tried out my go-pro. Wall cloud! Rotation!
Tornado Sirens?!?!?!?! We drove into town and asked some local chasers if that is what we heard. Yup, that is what we heard. We kept ahead of the storm and the wall cloud vanished. I will post some more photos and videos of the storm when i get a chance to process them, I have 2 quick edits of the storm after the tornado threat decreased, one with a bolt of lightning.
We saw a really cool ghost town in this area, and I had hoped to go back to photograph it but by the time we got back to it the rain wind and some hail made me change my mind. Off to Wichita for the evening, and some amazing BBQ, then back to the room for some drinks (the next day was a “down day” not storm chasing. A 1.75 litre bottle of rum cost me $17. I drank about $8 worth.
Tuesday – Day 7
I feel surprisingly decent. I check the bottle of rum and see it is in fact 40% alcohol, not some watered down version like the beer I have been drinking up to this point. Off to Texas today, the Dallas Fort Worth area.
Roadkilled Armadillos!! 9 in the last 10 miles of Kansas or so. More in Oklahoma, then fewer near Texas. But still enough for me to keep a running total. I really want to get a shot of a roadkill armadillo, but we were on the Interstate and I was not risking stopping for pictures.
The roads in the Dallas Fort Worth area are crazy. 4 levels of zig zaggy interloopy things when you just want to turn right. This was a “non chase day” but we were greeted with a major storm heading in to Fort Worth. There was no way I could stop or pull off to get pictures of the structure, kyle managed a few with his cell phone.
We got to the hotel room, finally, and checked in. The sky was getting darker, it was very hot and humid and reminded Kyle of Thailand. We wanted to beat the rain to the Cajun restaurant we were going to have supper at, so we did not waste much time.
On the way to the restaurant, the storm hit, and it hit hard. Power lines started sparking. And then I saw a bright blue power flash like I have seen in tornado videos. And then we saw a transformer blow up, with a very bright blue power flash. And then a 3rd.
We pulled into the restaurant, strung out from the road, and the rains hit hard. We waited in the truck and i thought i’d try to get some lightning shots. And then the wind went crazy, and things changed.
And then the Tornado Sirens went off.
I looked at Kyle, we were quiet for 10 seconds. How Ironic would this be, we have been chasing tornado’s all over Tornado alley, this was our one non chase day, we just wanted to eat and see a movie – is this how it is going to go down, sitting in this parking lot with and empty belly, helpless to do much about it?
To be continued…..
(I’m obviously O.K…..don’t worry)