2009-04-16 Report

Image of me in the Expedition with the Expedition driving by and Michael's Subaru in the backgroud - all live streamed at the same time. Crazy!

Yesterday's can be summed up by: "When there's a slight risk of severe weather in your backyard, you have to give it a try!"

Not much materialized in the cool 60 degree temps and 50 dewpoints over eastern Colorado yesterday. I headed out from work at 11am and got out to Limon, CO into some broken sunshine and warmer temps from the stratus deck to the west. I saw that Michael was coming out on I-70 on spotternetwork and gave him a call. We all met up at Arby's and grabbed some quick lunch and then headed south out of Limon on hw71 towards a blip that had formed on the GR3 radar.

About a mile south of town my engine started making a 'pop - pop' sound and started loosing power. I pulled over and opened the hood to find fuel and air popping out of one of the sparkplug holes. I swung around and limped back to town while Michael continued south.

In Limon, I stopped at the main truck stop and they pointed me to a shop on the north side of town where in a crazy moment of convergence the TIV2 pulled in front of me in. Sitting in the waiting room of the repair shop with TWC on cable and my laptop going - I saw that Tony Laubach was also right near me on spotternetwork and in fact I could see him at the Flying J truck stop across the street! That's one of the crazy things about chasing that you can run into friends in the middle of no where from all over the country or right in your backyard.

$275 later I was on the road and headed back south to meet up with Michael and Christian near the town of Karval, CO. Easterly winds were howling and clouds streaming in from the west. Everything was looking good, we were going to get our turn just like everyone on the tornadoes between Amarillo and Lubbock, TX an hour before!

A string of cells developed over Springfield, CO to the south and started moving in the flow towards us. We raced down to almost Las Animas, CO were the storms started die off in a surge of cold air and stratus from the east.

That was it for us and we headed back to Denver where we are now on the cold side of the storm and have already gotten 14" of snow and may get up to 3 feet!