Severe Storms in Western Kansas

Chase Recap:

We spent the 13th at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico and had reservations for the Hampton Inn in Lubbock. Unfortunately, that hotel was overbooked and availability in Lubbock was nil, so we were sent to Amarillo in search of a room. After arriving in Amarillo around 3am, we were asleep until late in the morning.

Waking up in Amarillo

Our intention was to head back to Norman and wind down for the rest of the chase cation before everyone departed on Sunday. The SPC placed a slight risk in Western Kansas and it had me questioning the wisdom to head home.

After some breakfast, we headed to Pampa and then north out of Pampa towards Kansas. In retrospect, that was the wrong call with landspouts being reported near Campo around the time we were nearing Garden City Kansas.

We turned around and headed back to the storm which produced the landspout, but didn’t find anything very interesting. We ended up following it back to Garden City where a couple semi trucks had blown off the highway.

Heading to North Platte

With a 15% hatched severe for Day 2 in South Dakota, we headed north towards North Platte where we stayed that evening.