Synopsis:
This chase day was rather frustrating, but I did manage to get some nice images out of a very tiring chase with a ton of driving. I set out for the Raton/Johnson Mesa area early in the day, leaving Dodge City around 7:00am. I reached Raton by early afternoon and then decided to observe the sky atop the Johnson Mesa. Some small storms formed around 2:00pm CDT, and I followed one of them off the mesa southeast to the Des Moines, NM area. This storm never materialized, and I decided to head back northwest in the direction of Raton to catch new mountain storms. I drove all the way back to and up the Johnson Mesa to try my hand at some lightning photography. These storms were not cooperating, and in the meantime, new development was occurring back off to the east again... ugh! So, back southeast it was again on Hwy 64 to Clayton. Storms were really growing to my south-southwest about 90 miles, and I didn't want to end the chase on such a frustrating note, so I set a course to intercept the storms moving into desolate Oldham County, TX. At Dalhart I continued south to Hartley with very electrical storms to the southwest. At Hartley, I continued west to photograph some of the storm structure with nice canyon landscape. Storms were continuing to form all around me, and I was not able to stay ahead of them. I got munched by wind and small hail between Hartley and Dumas along Hwy 87. I then went north about 10 miles north of Dumas to photograph lightning from a new storm to my north-northwest at sunset. I only had marginal success, missing some of the close CG's, unfortunately.
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