(18 May 2010, Karen Kosiba)(the CliffsNotes version...Did I just date myself?)
Morning forecast...the environment looked favorable for supercells from Midland, TX northward to SE CO.
Brief joust...moved from hotel location in Clovis, TX to Vega, TX. Inched (kilometered) up the 385 to a picturesque vista (artistic liberties).
Enjoying the 385, making dinner plans at the Big Texan...a storm quickly forms to our west and south. Storm intensity increases and increases and increases...we have our target storm.
Target storm...The armada moves north towards Dumas, TX. We do the supercell samba (that is such a lame analogy, I know! I just wanted to illustrate that we do a complicated deployment choreography--is the samba choreographed?!--where we have all of our instruments surrounding the supercell in some organized fashion and continually adjust as the storm evolves).
Road options were few, so we sambaed where we could. Radar data indicated good rotation (when not taking tornado-scale measurements, the DOWs are about 20 km away, so we do not see very near the surface) and numerous teams reported funnels.
We kept jockeying to the east, following the storm, until The Ultimate Road Hole was encountered by Stinnett, TX. It was late and the next north/south road was about 3o minutes to our east. We either could say" Goodbye" to the storm for the night or say "See you in 30."
"See you in 30"....The CSWR teams (DOWs and tornado pod teams) move east to Pampa, TX and north on 70 to make our last stand...
The circulation was organized, then unorganized, then organized...The pod people deployed their pods...then picked up their pods...then deployed their pods. They got wet. No tornado crossed the road...even to get to the other side.
Keeping score is getting complicated (especially with partial points), so let's just say Vortex2 wins!!
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Picture 1: The view from the back of DOW7. I really need to out of the DOW Cave.
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