UK Storm Chasing - Tornado Alley (19-5-02)

Day 6 (19-5-2002) Click on any of the the Photos to Enlarge
We were torn between going north or going south, the pattern didn't show any one good pattern. We knew there was going to be lightning to the north later, but the south looked like it could develop into something a bit more interesting later.
We decided to go south in the end. On the way we saw a weather tour operator going north which confused us So in the hope that they knew something we turned around, only to see them going south, maybe they had heard of us and thought we knew something, I don't think so. We pulled into a garage, filled up with fuel and had a destination, right we had said south in the first choice and that seem to be the right choice, so yet again we headed south over the border again towards Raton. To the right is a picture of developing Cu (short for cumulus).
As we reached Raton New Mexico, we pulled over to the side again, got out and had a look.
There was good unstable cloud heading north east (the picture to the right shows Mamma cloud), but we could see nothing developing to the south.
Right we are only just outside Raton, let's hope that we can find somewhere to pug the laptop into. We check a couple of restaurants and a hotel, which tell us there is a tourist center just down the road. Tom goes in and asks about a phone line, Joseph said that we could come in and use theres a few second later he comes back out and waves me in. Looking a the data there is nothing strong about, everything looks scattered, there is not one definable cell. There is something right down on the Mexican, New Mexico border but that would be an eight hour drive, and by that time it would be gone.
We change our minds again, turn around and head back over the border, again.
On the I-25 exit 34 we find a nice diner that has a phone line for our computer, also it's nice to stop and have some cooked food instead of having something from a drive though or comes out of a plastic bag.
Heading up the I-25 we notice good cloud over the Rocky mountains to our left, this is where we learn a new lesson in storm chasing, DON'T GO CHASING IN THE MOUNTAINS 1 - One when you think you are going to see something over the next hill, you don't! 2 - It's full of trees, followed by more trees! 3 - Also your ground speed goes down and you don't get anywhere fast! 4 - Although this doesn't affect storm chasing, when you are wearing shorts it's cold! We did however reach 9000 feet above sea level!
We then got reports of a storm brewing over Colorado Spring Colorado, we got back onto the I-35 and headed north again.
We are then treated to a small lightning storm, at least it gave me a chance to get my slr camera out and get some pictures of lightning at night, the storm then died and we worked our way back to Limon Colorado and booked into Econo Lodge. I was starting to think it was going to be another bust day.
Map of route