Late Trip Report – Arches NP

On my way back to California from my storm chase trip, I decided to take a slightly longer route. Instead of heading up to Nebraska and catching I-80, I went west through KS and Colorado on I-70. The goal here was to visit Arches NP, in eastern Utah. I had been there a couple of times, but my last visit was in April of 2005, so it had been a while.

Garden of Eden, Arches NP

I arrived at the park around 5 p.m., heading up the serpentine entrance road onto the plateau. For those that have not been to Arches, the entrance road leaves US 191 at the bottom of a canyon, then climbs the sandstone canyon wall for a little bit before topping out on a large, elevated plateau of red rock.

Since I had limited time, I only stopped at the better-known viewpoints to take pictures. One of my favorite spots is one that most visitors overlook. It is called the Garden of Eden, and it is a group of whimsically-shaped rocks along the Windows road. I stopped here in April 2005 and snapped a photo that has always been one of my favorites. As was the case in 2005, the wind was howling during this trip, and it made photography a bit on the tough side.

After spending some time in Eden, I found some more interesting compositions near the Windows parking lot. I then headed back to the main park road and drove to the Devil’s Garden area, which is at the end of the main road. From this trailhead, you can hike for a few miles amongst the rock fins and sculptures of the Devil’s Garden. The park campground is also in this area (where my car broke down during my visit in July 2004).

After getting my Arches fix, I headed to Green River, UT and found a hotel room for the night. A visit to Goblin Valley State Park was planned for the next morning, which will be covered in another blog post after I get the film developed.

 

Show Report – July Second Saturday

I’d like to thank everyone that visited my display last night, Saturday July 12.  It was great talking about photography and travel with all of the interesting people, of all ages, who visited my booth area.  Thanks to the nice weather, my display experienced quite a bit of traffic and website hits have already increased.  I’d especially like to thank the great folks at McMartin Realty, who allow artists to display work in their parking lot.  I had a fantastic time doing this show and look forward to doing more in the future.

Next month, Second Saturday is on August 9.  So, if you’re out and about looking at the art, or even just people-watching, feel free to stop by the art displays on K St, between 20th and 21st and say hello!

 

Second Saturday Shows

If you’re out and about in Sacramento for the Second Saturday art walk on July 12, please stop by the McMartin Realty office and check out my booth. The outdoor venue is on K St. between 20th and 21st streets. I’ll be showing seven framed pieces, and will have plenty of smaller matted images available for sale. I will be showing my work in August as well. I hope to see you there!

 

Day 12: The Last Hurrah

A high risk of severe storms was forecast by the Storm Prediction Center today.  The area extended from Oklahoma northward to southern Minnesota, and all modes of severe weather were predicted.  We blasted east from Goodland KS in the morning, and by the time we reached Hays, storms were already forming.  They were taking on a linear appearance, which wasn’t good for tornadoes.  They were also moving at 50 mph or faster, which wasn’t good for visibility or chasing.  Sheesh…what to do?

We decided to get ahead of the developing line and camp out to watch the individual cells blast by.  This was marginally-successful, as we watched some strong rotation go by near Bennington, KS.  But overall it was a bust, thanks to fast storm motion, linear storm mode, and unfavorable chase terrain (hills and trees of northeastern KS).

In Salina, the three amigos decided to cut off the chase.  Manross headed back to OKC, and Al and I caravaned west.  I stopped to take some pics of a pretty storm in Gove County, KS, but otherwise, my convective pursuits are done for the year.  I’m heading back to California, stopping for various photography opportunities along the way.

As an aside, the Safemark repair shop in Scott City, KS is highly recommended.  We rolled in here on Tuesday with a compressor problem, and they were very kind to us when they had every opportunity to take advantage of us.  Their names escape me now, but the three mechanics that helped us out were fantastic.  Thanks Safemark!

 

Day 10: Back to the Cornhusker State

After getting the vehicle repaired in Scott City, we moseyed around central KS for a while until it was apparent that the cap was suppressing everything. Some cirrus moving over the area was helping to keep convection down as well. There were storms in southern NE, so we headed toward Holdredge, NE to catch them.

We made great time in getting there, so we headed west toward the storms.  This was a similar route that I had taken the week before, so I warned Kev about the NHP patrols here.  The storms were severe-warned, but looked very cold and outflowish.  Not really what we want for tornadoes.  So we re-evaluated, and decided to head southwest toward a couple of tornado-warned storms near McCook, about 100 miles southwest of where we were.

I plotted a course through Gosper and Frontier counties, and was surprised by an unpaved state highway.  But it was well-maintained, so despite the heavy rains, it was really quite passable.  Near the town of Stockville, the first storm came into view.  Oh my, was it pretty.  There was a barrel-shaped updraft region, beautiful cloud striations, and a dark green hail core.  It was tornado-warned, and heading for the town of Curtis, which was just NW of us.  We watched the storm for a while, and succeeded in killing it (Manross and I have a knack for doing that).

We dropped south after another storm, but it was merging with more convection to its south and becoming linear.  Again, not really what you want for tornadoes.  So we stopped to take some lightning pics, then headed down to Goodland KS (again) for the night.

 

Day 9: Down Day

We left Goodland and targeted south-central KS, namely the Medicine Lodge area.  Severe chances were marginal today, and hopes weren’t really high for tornadoes.

Around Oakley, Kevin noticed that the A/C wasn’t running very cold.  We headed south on US83 toward Scott City, and the A/C still wasn’t cold.  We also noticed a grinding sound coming from the engine.  Ruh roh.  We found a repair shop in Scott City, and the mechanic directed us to an A/C repair place on the west side of town.

This put us down for the day, so we found a motel.  It was a scary place.  Let’s just leave it at that.

The day was not completely lost, however.  Some storms rolled through the area in the evening, and we could still drive out a few miles, so we went north out of town to take some pics.  We ended up getting some really nice shelf cloud pics, and some fantastic lightning.

 

Day 8: Cheap storm, cheap beer

Started out in Goodland on Monday, looking to hang around the area for a while and wait for storms to get going.  The target as of late morning was the NE panhandle, so we headed that way shortly after noon MDT.  However, enhanced cumulus development, along with merging outflow boundaries, pulled us back south to I-70 in eastern CO.  A storm soon developed right over Burlington, CO, and quickly went severe.

We hauled south to catch up, but were too far north to get there before it moved across the state line into KS.  The storm was producing grapefruit-sized hail over I-70 in Kanorado, KS.  We headed east toward the storm, but it met a rapid demise as it left the boundary convergence that helped it form.

Our friend Al works at the NWS office in Goodland, and he has a nice farmstead north of town, so we went there for brats and beer.  That ends Day 8.

 

Day 7: Heading west

After 2 days of visiting family and friends in MO, I headed back west on Sunday to meet up with Kevin Manross in Salina, KS.  The plan was to leave my car in SLN and travel west with Kev toward Goodland, KS, for possible supercell storms later in the day.  We met up in SLN around 1 p.m., loaded stuff into his vehicle, left my info with the truck stop personnel, and headed west.

We turned north in Burlington, CO, on US385 and pushed on to Julesburg, CO as a storm intensified to our northwest.  This storm was pushing southeast through the Nebraska panhandle, and was still about 30 miles NW of us when we first caught sight of the base.  The storm motion would bring it over the town of Chappell, NE, so we stopped just west of that town to watch as it approached.

The storm was pretty high-based, so the tornado threat wasn’t all that high.  However, the storm structure was fantastic, easily the prettiest storm I’ve seen on this trip.  We stayed just ahead of it, stopping every few miles and taking pictures.  The storm developed a new wall cloud south of Julesburg, then turned a little more east toward the town of Venango, NE.  We turned east as well, brushing the precip core.  About 5 miles east of town, we watched the RFD blast down into a field, and a tight dust whirl appeared near the road.  The whirl moved due north, and wasn’t attached to the cloud base, so it was likely a gustnado.

We cut off the chase here and headed to Goodland for the night.

 

Day 6: Tornadofest…for everyone else

Days like this make me wonder if I could chase my way out of a paper bag.

The day started in Belleville, KS, on the KS/NE border. I had driven up to Belleville from Norman OK the day before, to be in position for what was shaping up to be a significant outbreak in southern NE and northern KS. I hung around the Super 8 until 10:30, then sauntered north and west to Hastings, NE, then west to Kearney. I checked satellite and observations in Kearney, then headed south to Holdredge as storms began to pop to the southwest.

The decision was made to head farther west, toward a developing storm moving into Frontier county, NE. Driving west out of Funk, NE, I had a little visit with the NHP, who gave me a warning for 68 mph in a 60 zone. Unlike other chasers this season, I had no problems with the LEO encounter, and it didn’t set me back as far as time went. I continued toward the storm, which went from nothing to severe-warned in about a half hour.

By the time I reached Elwood, NE, the storm was tornado-warned, and I could see why. A large, blocky wall cloud was present about 15 miles to my southwest, and it was quickly moving toward me. I stopped south of Elwood and took some pics of the storm structure, but the view due west was blocked by the town and trees. Once I headed east again, I could see what the fuss was all about…a huge, ground-hugging wall cloud and a dark green hail core were just to my west. It was fan-diddly-tastic.

The road I was on led southeast, while the storm was moving northeast, so of course the updraft base got away from me. I tried to keep up by going north, but got into a really bad position…just south of the hail core, in the strong winds of the rear flank downdraft (RFD). Very strong wind gusts made me leery of the telephone poles along the road, so once I reached the next N-S highway, I headed south away from the beast.

Of course, this storm went on to produce multiple tornadoes after I fell behind. So I tried to blast east on I-80, then south through Hastings on US281 to maybe intercept some storms in northern KS. But I didn’t make this decision quickly enough, and my dive south toward KS was in vain as a precip core containing baseball hail cut me off near the border.

I threw in the towel and headed to Hastings for the night. But first, I had to get out of the way of yet another tornado-warned storm zipping northeast from Kansas. It was very electrified, so I shot some lighting photos and then got the hell out of the way. And, of course, the target storm in KS produced multiple tornadoes.

So, in summary, I drove in circles in southern NE, went through Hastings 3 times, and all I have to show for it is some lighting photos and a warning from the NHP. Beautiful.

- JB

 

Day 4/5: Back to the Sooner State

After spending a stormy night in Kingman, KS, I headed south to Oklahoma to hopefully see some marginally severe storms along the Red River.  The target of the day was Frederick, OK, in the southwestern corner of the state, where an outflow boundary would initiate storms in the afternoon.  As I headed west from Lawton on US62, I watched cumulus towers build to the west near Altus.  One tower was becoming a thunderstorm to the south, so I headed south toward Frederick on US183.

This storm fizzled soon after I caught up to it, so I headed southwest into Texas after a severe-warned storm west of Vernon.  But this storm weakened too, so I turned back north toward Altus, where a nearly-stationary storm was strengthening.  This storm looked fantastic from the south – a well-defined precip core, sharp updraft towers, and a turbulent anvil.  As I crested a hill south of Altus, the storm base came into view…and WOW was it fantastic!  I turned west toward the storm, proceeding through the town of Elmer before stopping on a gravel road.

The storm developed one or two ragged wall clouds, then began to accelerate southeastward.  Reports of golfball hail came over the radio, so I bailed east a bit to stay out of that.  The storm soon became elongated, with smooth, laminar cloud features that were otherworldly.

After the storm moved southeast across the Red River, I turned back north toward Norman, where I was meeting up with friends for the evening.  I encountered a bit of photographic luck on the way, however.  Near Lawton, I noticed a large cumulus cloud in the southeast, with a stable wave-like cloud above it.  The sun was starting to set, turning everything orange.  As I scrambled to find a place to pull over, I came across a gravel lot.  Next to this lot was a field of wildflowers, complete with a wooden fence.  An entire roll of film was spent here.

Day 5 was a re-positioning day, heading north from OKC toward Nebraska for a possible chase on Thursday.