Today is a down day. I will be driving back to Dodge City from Amarillo. Overnight last night I did some moonlit landscape photography in the Palo Duro Canyon area along Hwy 207 southeast of Amarillo. I think some of the images will come out pretty good with a sky full of stars amidst the canyon landscape.
I will hang around home today, and then perhaps depart for the South Dakota-Nebraska border area near the southern Black Hills… Low level moisture/CAPE will be rather minimal and since Thursday’s best play could be as far south as the Red River, I may have to forego the brief trip up north. More on this in a later post. -Mike U
This is an update from previous blog post.. I decided to get a room in Amarillo because I wanted to break up the driving. I will still go out overnight and do some moonlight landscape photography but I didn’t want to do it feeling tired/fatigued so I will take a long late evening nap and go out around 1am or so. Will head back to Dodge tomorrow and stay there just tomorow and possibly Tuesday
I just realized that the moon is now just about Full. So I just had
an idea. Eastern TX Panhandle Route 207 landscape photography by
moonlight. Let’s do it. Since I have free non-chasing time until
Wednesday, and I’m in no hurry to get back to Dodge tomorrow, I figure
why not. So I’ll spend most of my late night hours doing just that.
I’m going to head to the Interstate first and grab some dinner, then
back to Hwy 207. On my mind for possible shots: There are a lot of
flooded fields I’ve noticed, so maybe star trail reflection off one of
the flooded fields? With the D3 and my f2/8 ultra wide angle lens
anything is possible. Palo Duro Canyon in full moonlight. I’m liking
the sounds of this! I love spontaneity, can’t you tell? -Mike U
An early evening drive north on Hwy 207 will cap of this 2nd chase
day.. Hopefully sunset light will be good. This is a good scenic
drive from Silverton to Borger in the eastern TX Panhandle. I don’t
think it’s a surprise to anyone (including myself!) that nothing is
developing amidst lower 30 dewpoints. Even though there’s chilly air
aloft, need a little more than this to get at least a small convective
cell going. There are a few high based “wannabes” but there simply
isn’t enough CAPE and convergence to get things going. I will be in
Dodge City by late tonight.
I have been taken a leisurely drive east on FM road 145 across the far
southern TX Panhandle this afternoon. The cumulus field continues to
slowly grow and the way it looks, it appears at least one small storm
may form out of this as the mesoscale surface wind flow environment
becomes increasingly convergent toward 00z. the SPC mesoanalysis
shows about 400-500 J/kg of SBCAPE in this area with lower 30s
dewpoints. Obviously, this is pretty pathetic for decent
surface-based storms, however mid level temperatures are really cool.
500mb temps are around -18C and 700mb temps are around +1 or +2C. I
will continue my slow drive toward the Caprock Canyon late this
afternoon. If no storm develops, I’ll spend a little bit around the
Canyon and do some photography around there during golden hour light.
Beyond today…
I’ve looked more at tomorrow, and the more I look the more I am
discouraged about chaseable storms in my domain. I usually draw my
line about I-35 on the east edge and about a Junction to Killeen, TX
line in the south edge. If I was really desperate for a storm and the
pattern looked sucky for the remainder of my vacation, then yeah, I’d
probably go for it, but the Wednesday and beyond period look pretty
good…especially toward this weekend when the real moisture finally
gets back into the southern Plains.
So, here is the updated plan — I will head back to Dodge City
tonight, more than likely. It will probably be pretty late. Monday,
I’ll take care of a few outstanding chores and such in Dodge, and then
I will re-evaluate the next move. Since Tuesday will most assuredly
be a down day too, I may hang around Dodge Tuesday, too, and save some
money… then head out again Wednesday morning for western Nebraska.
My eye keeps being drawn toward western Nebraska… perhaps Sand Hill
region… Wednesday. Thursday, the GFS has a pretty good front moving
south with the first wave…but stalling out somewhere across southern
Oklahoma perhaps. It may be a long drive from Wednesday’s western
Nebraska play to Thursday’s southern Oklahoma play (at least as it
appears now??). These things usually change… much like my itinerary
for today and tomorrow. More later!
Time is 12:21 Central. Heading northeast to Clovis where I will have lunch and then off to the east. There is cumulus already forming in the dry air. Temperatures are cold a lot. So, we may just get a storm this afternoon in the Texas panhandle.
[ Transcribed by MyCaption ]
Last minute change of plans. Heading to Caprock Canyons. I am going to drive out to the Caprock Canyons State Park area today. Early evening photography in the Caprock Canyons is the main goal here, but there is actually an outside chance of an isolated small thunderstorm developing, per the NAM model, in this area. So this is where I will go instead of the Carlsbad/Guadalupe Mts area. Not sure yet where I will stay tonight, I’ll probably figure that out later on today.
Looking ahead:
I wish Monday’s potential play wasn’t so close to the I-35 corridor in central TX. I begin to shutter thinking how far southeast I would be tomorrow by the end of that chase… near Waco, TX perhaps. A little out of the comfort zone for this High Plains Drifter! Tuesday would be a drive day back to Dodge City I think, if I chased Monday. I need to do a couple chores in Dodge actually before resuming the chase. Wednesday looks north… perhaps western Nebraska? Still looks like some decent potential Wednesday and beyond, which is why I’m considering blowing off the whole south-southwest of Fort Worth carrot tomorrow.
Weak showers, virga, and rainbow put on a display near Vaughn, New Mexico
The forecast worked out perfectly for Day One. My goal was to get photogenic New Mexico sky + landscape scenes from innocuous convective showers in an environment with prevailing northwest surface winds and CAPE of about 100 J/kg (LI around -1°C). My target was Las Vegas, NM and south of there once showers moved off the mountains. I arrived in Las Vegas, NM around 12:45pm MDT with some initial showers already forming just northwest of town. After a quick lunch I drove south on Hwy 84 toward I-40, stopping a few times to photograph a few of the showers to my north. I then continued southwest on Hwy 54 stopping a few more times along the way as the showers were increasing in coverage with more widespread virga and rain reaching the ground. The dewpoint was in the lower 30s, so there was a lot of evaporation of the precipitation cores. I reached Vaughn and drove a few miles southeast for another quick photo grab… then back to Vaughn to head south on Hwy 285, where I spent most of my time during this chase. 10 miles to the southeast of Vaughn, I found this ranch road called County Road 3G (per Tiger shape file readout). This was a nice little road away from the main highway a little bit to do some work without the traffic distractions of the highway, which is a 4-lane highway all the way from Vaughn to Roswell. More showers were developing off to the northwest, and as early evening was approaching, I was trying to figure out where the best opportunity to set up for “golden hour” light. I thought I was going to have to head northwest quite a ways for fears that the convection would hover too close to the western horizon and limit lighting possibilities from the setting sun.
First I drove west on Hwy 60 about 12 miles or so, then I realized that this wasn’t probably the best move, so I retraced back to Hwy 54 (from Vaughn you can travel in 5 different directions) and drove southwest thinking this might be the best path to sunlight. After about 8 miles driving on this highway, I began to reconsider this, too, for fears that the shower activity would be too far to the east without much convective virga/etc near me. About the time I decided to turn back around for Vaughn again, a rainbow started to appear. I photographed this rainbow as it waxed and waned periodically for a good half hour! I followed the backside of one particular shower as I drove south-southeast on Hwy 285. The rainbow was rather brilliant at times. I made it back to the aforementioned county road 3G where I had most of my best images, especially just before 7:00pm MDT when a large evaporating precipitation core lit up brilliantly on the backside of one of the showers to my southeast. A portion of the ever-persistent rainbow extended down from this virga shaft. I was fortunate enough as well to find a nice windmill for a foreground subject right next to the ranch road. I kept shooting for the better part of the next 40 minutes or so along this ranch road until the light finally faded. I managed to get one last grasp of pink color, looking off to the distant east as I was driving south along Hwy 285. All told, I probably stopped about 4 or 5 different times along Hwy 285 south of Vaughn during this chase… having to cross the 4-lane highway (which was sparsely traveled) in order to get to the east side of the road to set up and shoot. This was a very fun shoot!!
Begin: Dodge City, KS
End: Roswell, NM
Day One Mileage: 618 mi.
Trip Mileage: 618 mi.
23 images from this shoot:
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I have done storm chasing for today. I had a very good evening of photography right around sunset to the South of New Mexico. I am now heading to Roswell, New Mexico for the night.
[ Transcribed by MyCaption ]
…For lack of a better description! Very photogenic!
