A supercell started forming east of us, and so we got on the road. Our caravan was Roger and Elke in the lead car, us in the middle, and this random guy, Jaime, who decided to follow us for the day. The hoards of storm chasers all over the road is bizarre. We drove past the TIV. It is pretty stupid looking.
We then tried to get to the southeast side of the storm. That is supposed to put is in the rain free base and give us the best view of any possible tornadoes. This took a couple of hours and brought us into southeast Nebraska. Although we didn't see any tornadoes with this storm, we did get to see beautiful cloud formations.
This one looks like the luck dragon from the never ending story.
After this storm began to peter out, Dave and Roger decided our next best option would be to head over the Missouri River into Missouri and chase a storm there. After crossing the river we drove through a town called Oregon, which had baseball sized hail lying on the side of the road. Now, we got to Oregon about 20 minutes after the storm came through, so the hail had some time to melt. That means it was closer to softballs or grapefruits when it fell.
The roads in Missouri weren't cooperating with us. We couldn't get to the safest part of the storm without punching through the hook echo to get there. So that's what we (and I use the word "we" loosely. I didn't decide a whole lot.) decided to do.
We headed east through the town of Maysville. It was pouring rain, with serious winds trying to push me off the road. As we were driving through the center of town, there was a stillness. No one was on the roads, the sky was DARK and the tornado sirens were blaring. It was one of the eeriest things I've ever experienced.
However, after driving through rotating curtains of rain and hail, and not being able to see what was on the other side of those curtains (i.e. a tornado), we decided to head south and out of harm's way. While driving, we saw a funnel cloud, but it never became a tornado.
We ended up at a gas station with a bunch of other chasers and waited for dark. Mother nature put on quite the lightning show while we waited.
We then decided to head to St. Joseph, Missouri, where we would spend the night. I was pretty excited because I'd been driving for almost 9 hours nonstop and I was exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. But there was a catch. In order to go the 30 miles to get to St. Joseph, we had to drive between two major storm cores. I opted to keep driving so that Dave could watch the radar. It was the scariest drive I've ever done. It was raining so hard that I couldn't see the road in front of me, I had to focus on keeping my tire on the white line. It was the only way I could make sure to stay on the road. It started hailing, mostly pea sized, but with the occasional golf ball. It was LOUD. The constant lightning was like strobe lights.
I don't think I've ever been so happy to see a crappy little town in the middle of nowhere.
Dinner at Denny's (ew).
All in all, it was an exciting and interesting day. And I'm pretty proud of myself for not flipping out in all the scary driving. Go me!
You are awesome!
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