Normally our first day is simply a staging day. We look at the weather and determine where the best options for storms are and head that way. The conditions were good for some sever storms but, there was a cooler layer of low clouds from the previous night’s storms which would dampen the storms…or, so we thought. We got up near Chugwater, WY heading towards a good cell when Keith (one of our storm chase experts) looked at the clouds ahead of us and said the magic words… “I see rotation!” In less than a minute the first tornado touched down. We found a spot to pull over and were in great position to see the next two as they formed and touched down…
What a spectacular sight to see! We no sooner got the second tornado when I hear a thumping sound. I looked up and said “Look at that…” Keith took one look at the hail splattered on the pavement and told us to get in the van. Some big hail was coming out way. Without hesitation, we jumped in the van and sped off as the hail reached us. We were pelted with baseball sized hail as we tried to out run the storm but, the size of the hail and the power of the storm was relentless pounding the van. It sounded like someone had a baseball bat and was hitting us over and over. Keith saw a huge barn and made a quick turn into the farm. The Farmer, Virgil Jackson, saw us coming and quickly u jumped into his truck and pulled up so we could fit in. We sat out the storm for the next hour listening to the hail slam into the metal roof. It was so loud we couldn’t hear each other even when we shouted. When the storm had passed we took inventory of the van and counted 21 hits to the windshield and a blown out rear window…
With the damage to the windows too great to continue on, we headed back to Cheyenne for the night. Score: Storm chasers…3 tornados, Storm…2 windows and lots of dents to our van!
The rest of the week shows promise of more storms. Once our windows are fixed we will head back out to see what we can find. Stay tuned.
Images captured with Nikon D3S, AF-S 24-70, AF 16mm Fisheye, D300S, AF-S 18-200mm VR
