5/7-8/2009 - Texas-sized Monkey Love

Well, my 2009 storm chasing begins ... with an initial dud and lack of good prospects on the horizon. This weather pattern is very unusual for May -- featuring dismal zonal flow with a lack of good upper-level troughs to focus targets. In fact, this pattern is something one would expect in July or August, not May. Hence, the number of summer-like progressive derechos (as opposed to supercell tornadoes) that have traversed the central and eastern U.S. the past couple days.

Anyway, on the 7th, I flew from Chicago, IL to Jackson, MS to meet up with the usual suspects for my first trek into the Plains for the May-June chase season.

Beautiful cu field across Tennessee.

My first tornado of the trip ... well, a horizontal vortex generated by the plane flaps counts, right? Hell, it looks a lot more tornado-like than some of the crap that passes off as "tornadoes" on some chaser message boards these days.

Unfortunately, our rental minivan from Hertz was not available upon arrival, despite the reservation we'd had for a good two months. It was very Seinfeld-esque in that a car rental company can apparently take a reservation, but can't apparently hold the reservation. After a couple hours of waiting and dealing with the Hertz staff, we finally got a gimpy rental van complete with falling apart interior, check engine light on, no washer fluid, and a right door that doesn't open without pulling off 200 lbs of plastic semi-attached to the van. This Toyota Sienna sucks compared to the luxury we had last year -- a Town and Country with Sto 'n Go, two TVs, Sirius, harddrive, and a rearward looking camera. We eventually got on the road at about 3:30 pm and ended up in north Dallas about 11 pm where I was able to priceline a very nice Hyatt Place for $35.

The next day, we targeted the north-central area of Texas, which featured insane instability, but a lack of good shear. This would inevitably provide the ingredients for HP bombs if the cap could be broken. We spent most of the day in the town of Gainesville, TX, which after checking wikipedia, is famous for nothing.

One of the more common themes you will see while traversing Texas -- Rin Tin Tin monkey love.

The group waiting for the cap to weaken at a park in Gainesville, TX.

It was getting a bit late and convergence along the boundary to our north and west was having a hard time breaking the formidable cap. We began to eye convection forming south and west of us near Breckenridge, TX. This convection was not in our initial target area, but we eventually made the decision to try to chase it down since the stuff to our north was struggling. As we finally approached the northern cell of the bunch near Ranger, TX, the storm shriveled up and died. Yep, typical. We then dove south, where we did finally catch up with a big ol' HP supercell near a town called Blanket, TX. Unfortunately, the road network and setting sun did not provide any help with our attempt to outflank the storm. Thus, in summary, we got a bunch of pictures of "car wash" like stuff -- I assume most of the readers of this blog know what it looks like in a car wash, so I won't bore you with the images. The storm did prompt the smallest tornado warning I've ever seen as the town of Early, TX had a nice, tight shear couplet move atop it. We eventually made it through Early and Brownwood, where we noticed a good bit of light to moderate damage that appeared to be more straight-line induced rather than tornadic.

TVS and attendent shear couplet near Early, TX. Amazingly small tornado warning is the red polygon. Our location is the circle ... you can see we were "stuck" and not in a good place for viewing cloud structure.

Base reflectivity of the storm, including our GPS location (circle).

Okay, one weather-related pic ... a video capture of a lightning bolt in our car wash situation.

3/22-24-2009 -- Zion National Park

We left Grand Canyon by noon, traversing Navajo Nation during the afternoon in a rather amazing sandstorm. The winds were probably gusting upwards of 60-70 mph. That didn't stop us from purchasing some buffalo jerky at one of the numerous wind-ripped Native American stands along the highway -- stuff was damn good. Anyway, we headed onward to Glen Canyon -- a site I've wanted to see for a very long time after reading one of my favorite books -- Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang. I like the quote on the book from the National Observer: "A sad, hilarious, exuberant, vulgar fairy tale... It'll make you want to go out and blow up a dam." Ha! After Glen Canyon, we headed over to Zion National Park -- my second favorite park out there behind Canyonlands. We booked a room for a couple night at this nice mom-and-pop, which featured a hot tub and pool surrounded by the Zion cliffs -- how cool is that!. Man, I could live at this place ... if it weren't for the tourists in the Summer ...

Glen Canyon Dam posing for a view in front of the sandstorm.

Looking south of the dam into the remaining (unmutilated) parts of Glen Canyon.

Ah, Zion!

That's our rental -- we aptly named "Lil' Blue" -- in front of Angel's Landing. You're my boy blue! Piece of crap Toyota Yaris. Sometimes being a cheap bastard doesn't pay off. I mean, why even manufacturer an automatic car without cruise control these days?

Cottonwoods were just starting to bud. The greens in the summer offer a beautiful color contrast.

More cottonwoods in the valley floor.

One of the many tunnels along the Mt. Carmel-Zion Rd.

Views along the less-traveled Kalob Road -- I highly recommend this drive!

A brief snow shower providing a hazy-like sky in front of the cliffs along Kalob Road.

Farm along Kalob Road.

My very own gas station in Kanab Utah!

Okay, a couple pics from Vegas. This was our view from the Venetian, which I was able to Hotwire for $90! Ha!

Monica (kissing "Yellow"), Sharon, and me posing somewhere along The Strip. I'm still trying to figure out why "Red" is so "mad" in the background.

3/21-22/2009 - Grand Canyon

I've finally found a bit of free time to process and post some of my pictures from my trip to Nevada, Arizona, and Utah in March. This trip was anchored by a presentation at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, NV. Though Vegas was fun, I tend to prefer the sensory overload of nature in this region, which I'll highlight in these two posts. First up, is the Grand Canyon:

We arrived at Grand Canyon late on the 21st. The clouds -- signifying the approaching extratropical cyclone -- provided a beautiful skyscape, but left the landscape below blanketed in grays.

Back at the hotel, we found this unique pseudo-wannabe water fountain. Hmmm.

The next morning we got up real early to take in the sunrise on the South Rim. What an amazing experience that pictures fail to capture.

Posing at the big crack.

Sharon and I, and the crack.

Sharon taking it all in.

A little later, we took the road along the South Rim -- stopping every so often to take in the vistas.

Hey, at least the tree had a good view while alive.

That's a long hike to the Colorado!

The crack.

Desert View lookout, which is a rather amazing structure. At this point, winds were gusting over 50 mph as an extratropical cyclone dryslot surfaced.

View from inside the historic tower.

We left the Grand Canyon and traversed Navajo Nation in a blinding sandstorm. Really a fascinating event that stills won't reveal. Oh well ... onward to Glen Canyon and Zion (next post).