Today was our first “go” day, which means that severe weather was possible. Yesterday, we drove from Norman, OK to Clinton, OK to position the armada for a possible severe weather intercept today. We spent most of the day working on the vehicles, including getting the internet working on DOW 6 and sending DOW 7 for a drive shaft repair. This morning’s weather briefing was cut short in order for the armada to travel west for a target of Tulia, TX via Amarillo. The fleet staged in a parking lot in Tulia and then departed for a new target of Silverton. During this time, towering cumulus began to form along the dryline to our west and south. A sounding sent up in Tulia, showed 3000+ joules of CAPE, however, the CIN was large.

It was decided that there would not be a significant chance of a tornado developing today so everyone participated in a shakedown mission where the DOWs setup in dual doppler patterns and the probes dropped their pods. The mobile mesonets also practiced transects and encountered closed roads due to downed power lines from a microbust. After the gust front had passed we continued east to our hotel location. Upon arriving at the hotel, a developing cell to the south began to have a lowered cloud base and a hail shaft. The storm passed over the hotel bringing very strong windows and some pea sized hail. The storm exited with an excellent lightning show. Tomorrow looks like it might be a good day :)

Also, I was on the weather channel today discussing how the locals come out to visit when we are in parking lots.