Great Plains Storm Chase

The last week of May, I flew into Oklahoma City to go chasing after tornadoes.  I knew it was going to be an adventure when I climbed onto this crazy small propeller airplane and took an hour longer than anticipated to land due to turbulance (we bounced around like a roller coaster for a while with a lady behind me screaming).

 Our first day we segregated with the women in one van and the men in the other.

 We stopped at a different park every day to wait for the storms.  We titled this park "The Creepy Park."  I mean really, who would put their kid on that swing?  I think there is a body buried somewhere at this park.

 I bought a wiffle ball and bat and made everyone play a game.  It was super fun.

 When people ask what it is like to storm chase, I have to admit that it is pretty amazing and awesome.  But honestly, much of the time it looks like this (super bored and hot waiting for something to happen):

 This was my favorite park we went to.  The inside was a huge castle looking park.  And there was a train that went around it and you could ride the train.  There was a zoo right behind the park that was closed.  There was a huge sink hole from all the flooding and the animals had to be moved.

 This is what we looked at most of the time.  

 We were standing waiting for a storm to approach.  I was going to take a selfie with the van.  But just as I was about to push the photo button, instantly and huge hail and rain storm hit.  It was so sudden that this what the photo I got:

 We kept getting warnings on our phones for flooding, lightening, and of course tornadoes.

 Santa was out storm chasing too:

 Here are all the students on the trip:

 I have never seen a Magnolia before.  They are huge.

 As we chased, there was always a laptop, cell phone, and walk-e-talk-e.

 Cool hail:

 Funnel cloud (this one did NOT end up turning into a tornado):

 I could not get enough of the amazing circulation in the clouds everywhere.  It was mesmerizing, kind of like staring into a fire.

 We stayed every night at a different hotel in a different city.  But there were TONS of Holiday Inn Express hotels all around the south.  So we stayed in a different one every night.

 Rainbow:

The flooding was terrible in Texas. 

 I was surprised at how many storm chasers there were.  When people ask me if I was ever scared, I think of this storm.  I never really was too scared (except for some of the driving).  But this storm made me a little nervous as it passed directly over our heads.  But it didn't touch down until after it passed by us.

 I love the green hail core that is visible in this photo:

 The best tornado we saw.  It was an F2.  Unfortunately 3 people were pretty seriously injured in this one.  It hit an oil rig.

 Helicopters fly overhead to see the storm (if there is enough warning):

 There are abandoned homes like this everywhere in the great plains:

 The first town we entered in Kansas had Dorothy statues everywhere.

 Look at these boring long straight roads:

 Palo Duro Canyon, TX (the second largest canyon in the U.S.):

 We had to stop for some cows:

This is the entire group:

 And Kathleen took this photo.  I finally made it home after being rerouted the wrong direction.  What a site: