Long day today. If you look at the shot here, you'll see the rain core and the funnel attempting to form just to the right. This picture was taken with a very wide angle lens.
We drove north to do an intercept in the Oklahoma Panhandle. To say the least, we weren't disappointed. Once we got to Hooker (home of the Hooker Horny Toads), we headed west into Colorado and intercepted a monster set of cells.
Like flies to honey, we ended up with at least 40 cars of chasers driving down county dirt roads. At one time we were all parked look at a wall cloud that just wanted to drop a tornado. We saw many funnels, but no luck on a Tornado.
The short story is that we chased this storm for 5 hours until the sun set. We punched the core several times as we had no choice. Several times we had dime sized hail and the odd time up to a quarter. The rear flanking outflow winds were nothing short of amazing. Wild guess would put them in the 70mph range.
We chased it all the way into Guymon KS, where, at that point, the sun set and we called it a day. This storm oh so wanted to spawn a tornado, but it was not to be. Ron had said the actual core was over 20 miles wide at several points.
This is the short story tonight. We got in late, and have to depart early for New Mexico for tomorrow's tour.
Today's pictures are at http://portcredit.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=14&page=4.
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