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26th May 2010 |
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26/05 Day
10 L'orages & Limons Today was going to act partly as a travel day but also a chase day, as there was a slight risk of severe thunderstorms to our north over parts of Colorado. We packed up and headed off from our hotel in Amarillo, Texas, and began the drive northwards. Our first stop was for lunch in Lamar where we bagged our usual Subway (foot long, of course). Whilst in town, a large towering cumulus let rip just to the west of the town and quickly began throwing out some thunder. A solid downdraft of rain and hail quickly followed and the storm certainly showed potential. We headed north through the side of the precipitation core, picking up pea size hail. After we arrived to the north of the cell, it became clear that it was weakening again, so we left it behind. We'd already booked our hotel in Limon, Colorado, and so continued northwards towards the town. As we arrived in Limon, a large thunderstorm was developing about 30 miles to our west. We decided to keep the storm to our west, which was moving north-eastwards slowly, and headed up to the high plateau north of Limon. The storm quickly became a lovely classic supercell, with solid rotating updraft and a huge downdraft on its northern side. Our location commanded stunning views down onto the lower Plains to the west, and our view of the storm was perfect. At times, rotating wall clouds could be seen and a microburst of rain and hail sent a current of cold, dense air flowing away from the storm, complete with a little cloud on the density current's nose. After a couple of hours of watching the slow moving supercell, it began to weaken and so we made the short trip back to Limon. Large thunderstorms in the Denver area just north-west of us had delivered over a foot of golf ball hail, although that was just too far for us to have travelled today. We finished off the day in the nearby Oscar's bar where we made merry and ate our own body weight in food. A lovely waitress attached herself to us, desperate to find out all about England, such as "dumb roundabouts" and the "Muslim invasion". She also recommend we try some Rocky Mountain Oysters whilst we're here. Google it to find out why we won't! Total mileage: 381 miles |
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Putting
the finishing touches to re-packing the car and wiring up all of our
techie gear!
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Parked up in Lamar as a large thunderstorm breaks out very quickly. The huge downburst of rain and hail is quite striking and lay a few miles away. |
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Another
view of the thunderstorm just west of Lamar.
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We stopped
briefly on the high ground north of Limon to watch the developing storm
to the west. Even at this stage it was showing supercell characteristics.
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A massive downburst of rain and hail ejects from the storm, creating this "rainfoot" shape as the winds and precipitation fan outwards along the ground at high speed. |
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The storm gradually took on more LP characteristics as we watched, and the solid updraft base was complimented with several weak wall clouds. |
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The sheets
of hail falling ahead of the updraft. Reports were of hail up to golf
ball/ping pong ball size.
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Some
lovely wall clouds and structure were observed but it was clear the
storm was beginning to weaken and wouldn't form a tornado for us.
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