Day 2 - early thoughts

THU 28 MAY 2015

So far we've spent most of the morning in the Verizon store at Amarillo (TX) as our endless quest to try and get our mifi unit to work continues, after the fun with AT&T yesterday meant we just missed out on the significant tornado near Canadian (TX). Finally we've got all internet devices working, so we can properly begin the storm chase now!

Maccy D's and mammatus

A bite to eat in McDonalds (tally now up to 3), with mammatus overhead, and an analysis of the weather situation. A real mess to our south with thunderstorms developing quite widely, in an environment favourable for large hail and perhaps a few tornadoes. The anvil has spread out miles away from the storms, and hence it is cloudy here in Amarillo (with mammatus on the underside of the anvil) despite being some considerable distance away from any storms. We'd have to drive 160 miles to the south to get ahead of these storms, core-punching them along the way.

Alternatively, we've been keeping an eye of cumulus developing in the sunnier skies towards the NM border and far NW panhandle of TX, which is just starting to develop into a couple of thunderstorms. Current thinking is to drift west a bit towards NM and see what happens. Hopes aren't particularly high today given the cooler surface airmass here, probability of a tornado is lower but hopefully a nice thunderstorm may develop that we can chase into the TX panhandle...

2015 STORM CHASE stats thus far:
McDonald's tally: 3
Applebee's tally: 1
Distance driven: 345 miles
States visited: 2