Day 17

[pottyprof]

So will Paul Sherman's suction cups hold up and take the weight of his important tool or will Ian have to hold it firmly?? What's more, will Steve and the team have to have a hand in all this?? Tune in later to find out..

[Paul Sherman]

Upslope Flow in New Mexico, freezing cold temperatures with Dewpoints in the 30s & 40s

We tracked a Storm near to Springer (NM) This was the best Storm of the Day by far, followed it for about 5 hours until it finally begrudgingly gave us a Light Show, finished the Day at Las Vegas (NM) With current temps now at 5c.

- Hilly Terian

- Our Storm chucking out 1 " Hail

- Nice Views

Then we got some much deserved Lightning on the way to Las Vegas (New Mexico)

Paul Sherman

[AudMun]

Beautiful lightning shots from the dash cam! I should have left my camera with you Paul so you could get some of those F7.1 shots...... :lol: :lol:

[Nick F]

Great lightning shots Paul - following non-severe storms can sometimes be well worth it in the end, good job it wasn't Las Vegas in Nevada - as I'm sure you and Ian would be in those casinos right now! Another few days of non-severe storms over much of the Wern extent of the High Plains and West across Rockies, signs in the 4-8 day outlook of maybe some severe weather returning across the Nern Plains - by late weekend/early next week:

DAY 4-8 CONVECTIVE OUTLOOK

NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK

0337 AM CDT WED MAY 16 2007

VALID 191200Z - 241200Z

...DISCUSSION...

MEDIUM RANGE MODEL GUIDANCE REMAINS INCONSISTENT REGARDING EVOLUTION

OF UPPER TROUGH/MOVEMENT ACROSS THE NWRN U.S. INTO THE NRN/CNTRL

PLAINS EARLY NEXT WEEK. ECMWF AND GFS BOTH DISAGREE ON AMPLITUDE

AND TIMING OF TROUGH INTO THE HIGH PLAINS MONDAY-TUESDAY TIME FRAME.

EVEN SO...IT APPEARS SUFFICIENT LARGE SCALE FORCING WILL SPREAD

ATOP INCREASINGLY MOIST/BUOYANT AIRMASS FOR ORGANIZED THUNDERSTORM

DEVELOPMENT. LATEST THINKING IS SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS SHOULD EVOLVE

ALONG/AHEAD OF ADVANCING COLD FRONT THAT WILL SPREAD INTO THE

MID/UPPER MS VALLEY INTO THE UPPER GREAT LAKES BY MID WEEK.

..DARROW.. 05/16/2007

[stevestorms]

Hey can anyone tell them Paul, ian, and James to keep the noise down!!! they are in the next room :-)

[Greyowl]

Great lighting shots guys. Looks like the forcast is going your way too. Good luck.

[Nick F]

Hey can anyone tell them Paul, ian, and James to keep the noise down!!! they are in the next room :-)

Snoring or drunkenly noisy? :lol:

[Roger J Smith]

Today's convective activity will probably be across western NM and eastern Arizona spreading gradually north into se UT and sw CO. Cool, dry air at the surface is slowly pushing a frontal boundary further west but it should stall out from about Winslow AZ south then southeast towards Deming NM and with topography factored in, the most interesting weather later today should be near Show Low AZ. On Friday the activity will probably spread across western CO but dynamics will also begin to favour a lee trough situation near Pueblo CO in the foothills, so the storm chase may well take on a slow clockwise spiral from current rest stop, south then west, north and east to end up in east central CO on Friday.

You should strongly consider going just for the scenery, you'll be into areas such as the Petrified Forest in eastern AZ, the Navajo nation which straddles the AZ-NM border, Monument Valley in se Utah, and then the drive across the Colorado Rockies, all very scenic areas but changing scenery from one region to another.

In American meteorology, the term "monsoon" is used to describe a feed of moisture from the Gulf northwest into NM and AZ and even NV-UT in the summer months. This moisture flow is not exactly humid, but pumps up the desert dewpoints from values below 0 C to 10-15 C or even higher at times, and this more humid air tends to become very unstable over any slight upslopes such as the Mogollon Ridge in eastern AZ. The current situation although early season is somewhat typical of this summer pattern which leads to almost daily thunderstorms over the higher ground of eastern AZ in certain weather patterns. Usually there is higher than average pressure over the southern plains and less convective activity in Texas and Oklahoma in these patterns.

[AudMun]

Snoring or drunkenly noisy? :lol:

Knowing Ian, it has to be snoring!! :lol:

[NL]

Great shots of the lightning especially as ya on the move!! some pretty close strikes too.. Hope you all had thick jumpers on with temps like that!.. Shame bout you's coming home on Monday lookin more likely for another severe out break tue/wed..

[pottyprof]

Stunning lightning shots!! WOW!!

This is my favourite.. Must have been like a bomb going off.

[Mad Murdoch]

Amazing photos of the lightning..

What camera were they taken on?

[Paul Sherman]

Kelly,

They were taken on a Panasonic Mini DV Video Camera mounted on the front dash, has about 8.1 Million Mega Pixels. Gave us with the Canon as I nearly got Frostbite!!

Paul S

[Louby]

cracking pictures!

[Paul Sherman]

Knowing Ian, it has to be snoring!! :unsure:

Ian is not happy Stewart!! Super 8 only had 2 rooms with 3 beds in them last night, so the snoring match between Ian & James was incredible, have great Video Footage of Ian snoring and sounding like a DOG!! He has replaced the Boy Racer snore with that of what sounds like a Rottweiler!

Paul S

[AudMun]

Ian is not happy Stewart!! Super 8 only had 2 rooms with 3 beds in them last night, so the snoring match between Ian & James was incredible, have great Video Footage of Ian snoring and sounding like a DOG!! He has replaced the Boy Racer snore with that of what sounds like a Rottweiler!

Paul S

Good grief! It must have sounded like a cross between Battersea and Euston station. I take it sleep was a little challenging last night :unsure:

At least Ian got a taste of his own medicine though!

Stewart

[angela lynne]

great lightning pictures

[Stuart]

great pics