Where are the Stormy Days?!

Last night turned out to be a late night, so I really didn't get a chance to blog. But here I am awake bright and early and wanting to write about yesterday's experiences.

Firstly let me post the pictures of the meetings that I couldn't post yesterday! Thanks to Travis for sending me these photos!

This picture was taken on Tuesday night in Memphis, Tennessee, I believe. Here we are trying to figure out where we wanted to head on Wednesday morning. Jason actually has his computer screen up on the TV but you can't see it here because of the glare.

This photo was also taken in Memphis, but this is Wednesday morning. Here we decided to head to head toward Hunstville, Alabama. We really ended up in Tuscumbia and caught a decently photogenic squall line. Here is a photo that Travis screen-shotted from his radarscope app.

Above the blue circle represents our approximate position in Tuscumbia, Alabama. There was no lightning or thunder associated with this storm, but there was heavy rain and a good amount of wind. We all enjoyed it!

Okay, now on to yesterday's events. We met with Jason around 9:15 am to have our morning meeting and decided to head from Little Rock, Arkansas toward Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The trip took about 4 hours and 47 minutes and 339 miles. Yesterday was a day off from chasing because quite frankly, there is nothing to chase. 

This photo from Jason shows the devastation that occurred.  There was nothing left.

On the way to Oklahoma City we came across a damage path from the EF4 Vilonia tornado that occurred a little over 2 weeks ago on April 27th. Seeing a freshly made damage path was quite sobering for all of us. I'm 100% sure this was the first time that any of us have seen anything like this. I know that when I saw the damage path from the highway my heart sank. I felt this overwhelming sadness. I took a long minute to reflect on the situation and reflect on my feelings. I'm sure everyone else felt the same. After we pulled off to document the damage the van was quiet for a whole 2o minutes. We all just sat there and took it in. It's a very humbling reminder of what Mother Nature can do in a matter of seconds. Chasing is not all fun and games. Our purpose is to get out into the storms to collect data to help increase warning times. A matter or seconds can be the difference between life and death. 16 people lost their lives in this storm, and with the research that storm spotters, such as us, are doing we can hopefully prevent lives from being lost, in these situations.

After stopping to document to Vilonia damage path we headed out to Oklahoma City. In Oklahoma City, we checked into our hotel at the airport and ventured out to find dinner. Upon the other group's recommendation we stopped at Cattleman's Steakhouse to grab a nice hearty steak dinner. Here is our group photo taken by our awesome waiter that night.

Upon filling our tummies with some steak, we headed out to a place called celebration station. I must admit, it was the most fun that I have had in a really long time. The name of the game was go-karts. The first time around was just child's play, the second time around was when the fun started. We got in those little karts with every intention to have a ton of fun. Well let's say we did exactly that! Kat's go kart stalled first, which almost caused a pile-up. Then after that there was an 8 car pile up that followed around one of the turns, Devin might have caused that one. Here is a snapshot photo of the epic Meteo go-kart pile up.

Afterwards we just headed back to the hotel and called it a night. Our day was filled with a bunch of fun and I'm positive all of us had a great time. I would like to add one thing though, we are only finding extracurricular activities because of our lack of storm chasing options. At this point in time we have had a three day break where there were no options available to see any significant storm structure. After being in a 12-passenger van for hundred of miles you just need to release some energy. Go-karting was our way of doing this. As soon as a viable chase day opens up we will be back on the road and talking some hardcore meteorology.