Day One – 30 May 2022
Denver to Ponca City, OK
617 miles
Finally. After three years since my last chasing season, it’s oddly exciting to be back at it again. The problem was that I forgot how to pack, so I took a lot more than I needed to make sure nothing was left behind.
Even figuring out what to take with me inside the van was a learning experience. Or re-experience.
We had an early departure with storms going up from Kansas to Minnesota. Bill Reid decided to stick with the southern options in Kansas for two reasons. The Minnesota storms would be moving fast making it difficult to keep up with them and the next few days all had activity in Oklahoma and Texas.
So, we loaded up at eight in the morning and headed east to get across Kansas in time.
Lunch was at Freddy’s in Hays, Kansas which was a first for me, and we continued to Salina, watching the distance thunderheads. We turned south towards Wichita and had a choice of a couple of systems.
We stopped to watch one near Newton, Kansas for awhile. It had great structure.
We stayed long enough for it to approach overhead and it wasn’t showing much promise, so we headed out for the next system.
We made a short stop at Cassoday, Kansas to watch the second storm.
It didn’t show much development and we carried on to the third storm.
We approached near sunset and had some time to watch. I played with my new Olympus camera’s pro cap mode to capture some lightning.
We finished the day at the Comfort Inn in Ponca City, Oklahoma.
This set us up well for the next day.
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Bill Reid’s entry for 30 May 2022