Late Night From Lubbock

 The word of the day is "structure." Storms have structure- and today was the best day in terms of storm aesthetics that I've seen (confession: I may say that every time, but I regret nothing!).

We began our early day with a 6 hour drive south from Denver through to Roswell. I love New Mexico; in terms of scenic vistas, the gradual lowering of elevation from Colorado to New Mexico was great- but New Mexico has been good to me on all 3 of my chase trips. We caught up with our first storm, southeast of Roswell, later in the afternoon. 

The first storm was tornado warned, although this can be deceptive with the messy storm setup I mentioned in my last entry; there were a lot of maybenadoes, and this storm had a whole lot of dust to kick up into its circulation. We didn't see anything pronounced- but there a few moments of profound excitement.

As storm 1 waned, it was absorbed into storm 2- which showed off a lovely structure. After we relocated ~15-20 miles to witness storm 2, I took a few minutes to listen to Roger lecture on storm structure (I adore the opportunity to listen to an expert wax academic about supercell thunderstorms!), and take a reunited selfie with one of our drivers- Bill- whom I met on my first trip, 5 years ago. Two lovely gents for sure!

 

Storm 2 put up a beautifully striated structure (below) before waning down, and the group migrated to Lubbock for the night, accompanied by flashes of lightning.

I am grateful to have had such an exciting, jam-packed first day of chasing- but after little sleep last night and today's adventure, I'm looking forward to resting well and getting up early to work out. I'm glad I was wrong about ending up in Amarillo tonight- it's pretty great to be wrong for a good reason. Tomorrow looks like the atmosphere will be even better than today, and we will either play in south Texas or back in New Mexico. Either way, I'm one happy chaser!