2019 Season Introduction

Howdy!

My name is Lisa Beal. I’ll be touring with Tempest Tours for my 17th trip this year. Where has the time gone?

I’m nearing retirement, but still have plenty of energy for storm days. I’ll need it: I usually carry a hefty assortment of gadgets, earning the name Gadget Girl on tours past.

I live in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, in Bolingbrook, Illinois, and I work as an IT middleware engineer (that means I make big servers go, go, go). Like my buddy, Owen, I’m tied to a keyboard most of my waking hours — and sometimes those hours run really long.

To maintain my sanity, I will NOT be answering calls from work on vacation. Would you?

My typical chase-cation starts with a drive to Oklahoma city, usually with a stopover near friends on the way. And I take about 3 days to get home afterwards, if severe weather is around for chasing.

I have a dedicated chase vehicle (“Gadgetmobile III”, as the first two were gracefully retired in 2007 ans 2018, respectively).
See more information about my chase vehicles here.
I like chase in groups, with a friend or two, or solo.

I’ll be arriving in Oklahoma City on the Saturday evening before the trip so if anyone is wanting to explore locally, let me know! Usually, I make a trip to WalMart on the Sunday before departure, and it is pretty usual to have 2-3 others with me for that store run. Let me know if you need to do that. Text me … to connect for that store run, a lunch or dinner on Sunday, etc. I welcome the company.

I cannot say enough good things about the Tempest Tours crew, especially Bill Reid. He is the storm whisperer, and has put me in front of at least 30 of the tornadoes I’ve seen, among the 50 total I’ve seen. Bill is also an excellent photographer. Don’t be shy if you need camera advice. His is very solid advice.

I will be blogging each evening (or early the next morning) after each chase day. Look for updates athttp://www.underthethunder.org/blog/2018/05/(once I set it up, in the next few days) . I’ll also be posting (after the fact) to Facebook &/or Twitter. I’m user polarpal99 on both.

See you soon!

LisaB

CHASE2019 Season Summary

Here is the overall plan for my 2019 storm season (which I’ll update as events warrant):

CHASE 2019

DAILY JOURNAL

SEMINARS/CLASSROOM TRAINING:
DATE DAY START END MILES REMARKS
______ Sat Bolingbrook,IL Wheaton,IL 26 DuPage OHSEM Advanced Spotter Training (seminar)
http://www.dupagesevereweather.com
______ Thu Naperville,IL Bolingbrook,IL ___ NEMA Radar Class #1
http://www.napervilleema.org
______ Thu Naperville,IL Bolingbrook,IL ___ NEMA Radar Class #2
http://www.napervilleema.org
______ Sat Bolingbrook,IL Downers Grove, IL
Bolingbrook,IL		 26 Basic Spotter Training (review)
DuPage Area Radio Club (DARC)
GREAT PLAINS CHASES:
CHASE2016-01:
DATE DAY START END MILES REMARKS
08May Thu Bolingbrook,IL – ____ Prologue
09May Thu Bolingbrook,IL O’Hare Airport
Bolingbrook,IL
 ____ T-4: The British Contingent Arrives
10May Fri Bolingbrook,IL Chicago, IL
Springfield, IL
Versaille, MO
Springfield, MO		 ____ T-3: 103 Up then Out
11May Sat Springfield, MO El Reno, OK
Oklahoma City, OK		 ____ T-2: Oklahoma Bound
12May Sun Oklahoma City, OK Oklahoma City, OK ___ T-1: Around OKC, 2019
13May Mon Oklahoma City, OK _________________ ___ DAY 01
14May Tue _________________ _________________ ___ DAY 02
15May Wed _________________ _________________ ___ DAY 03
16May Thu _________________ _________________ ___ DAY 04
17May Fri _________________ _________________ ___ DAY 05
18May Sat _________________ _________________ ___ DAY 06
19May Sun _________________ _________________ ___ DAY 07
20May Mon _________________ _________________ ___ DAY 08
21May Tue _________________ _________________ ___ DAY 09
22May Wed _________________ _________________ ___ DAY 10
23May Thu _________________ _________________ ___ DAY 11
24May Fri _________________ _________________ ___ DAY 12
25May Sat _________________ _________________ ___ DAY 13
26May Sun _________________ _________________ ___ DAY 14
27May Mon _________________ _________________ ___ DAY 15
28May Tue ??? ??? ??? EPILOGUE
 
COLOR CODE
Plan was to not chase SILVER
Planned Chase Day (future) WHEAT
Available to chase; no weather (“blue-skied”) BLUE
Chase Day (available and expect stormy weather) GREEN
Weather Stormy, but not available for chasing PINK
BUST DAY – no severe storms where we looked! ORANGE
Training Day WHITE

Accommodations
Restaurants
Tools
Web Links

INTERIM UPDATE – 20180519 – Day 9

I have had issues getting my OneNote documents off my iPhone and into WordPress (where my blog lives).

In the interim, I’m posting Postscript exports from iPhone OneNote.

Day 3   [15.52 MB]  http://www.underthethunder.org/uploads/20180513-CHASE2018-Day03.pdf
Day 4 [  26.34 MB]  http://www.underthethunder.org/uploads/20180514-CHASE2018-Day4.pdf
Day 5 [229.04 MB] http://www.underthethunder.org/uploads/20180515-CHASE2018-Day5.pdf
Day 6   [56.95 MB] http://www.underthethunder.org/uploads/20180516-CHASE2018-Day6.pdf
Day 7  [72.93 MB]  http://www.underthethunder.org/uploads/20180517-CHASE2018-Day7.pdf
Day 8  [56.95 MB]  http://www.underthethunder.org/uploads/20180518-CHASE2018-Day8.pdf
Day 9  [26.46 MB]  http://www.underthethunder.org/uploads/20180519-CHASE2018-Day9.pdf

Apologies for the delays.

 

 

20180514 – CHASE2018 – Day 4

5:50 am – Woke. Could not get back to sleep
8:00 am – Packed. Showered. “Urrrr, morning sure comes early around here”
9:00 am – Checked out; ate breakfast (all bags are with me in the breakfast room). Chatted with Eric, Georgia, Evelyn, Helwig and Petri (Peter).
10:00am – Intros, safety lecture, weather briefing

11:15 am – depart hotel. Head west on I-40
11:57am – exit WB I-40 for Watonga, OK


2:00pm – Ate a salad for lunch at Gambino’s Pizza


3:35pm – continue on US281N into Kansas. Stopped at Kiowa, KS, home of the Kiowa County Museum.
Pit stop. Fuel stop. Sky stop.
4:08pm – depart Kiowa.
4:20pm – back in Oklahoma
4:55pm – pass south through Cherokee, OK (Gateway to the Salt Plains and more!)
5:29pm – shade stop. Almost 100°F! Towering cumulus clod to our northeast. We have stopped to observe.


6:00pm – depart Carmen, OK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6:34pm – Major County, OK
7:25pm – Return to Carmen, to keep on our severe-warned storm. Losing our daylight!

11:30pm – We arrive at the Northwest Inn, Woodward, OK.  Right now, a comfortable bed and free breakfast mde-to-order in the morning sounds pretty wonderful!


(Daytime photo, obviously!)

[Revisions and cleanup to come later]

20180511 – CHASE2018- Day 1

11:02 AM – depart office promptly

11:45 AM – Depart from I-355, entering I-55 southbound. Drove through a brief call shower.

12:28 PM – Passed by Dwight, Illinois. Just saw a northbound Amtrak train heading to Chicago. Feels very like in my childhood memory of travel between Rockford and Monmouth, Illinois. The family used to travel US 34. We used to see many trains along that route. (Sorry, no picture, as I am in traffic.)

Traffic has slowed to a crawl. Seems there is some roadwork or a police action of a head up ahead.
“Work zone speed limit 55 mph.” (Actual speed 24, but it has been 10 mph for the last 10 minutes. Do the math!)  And there they are: those people who see the merge signs for the last 2 miles and wait to the last minute to join traffic because they think that the rest of us are stupid and will let them in. And it only takes one generous person to make them right. Now four lanes have become two lanes, one northbound one southbound. The southbound lanes of I-55 or being revealed re-built. (76.3 miles into the trip)

12:49 PM – Left the construction zone at exit 201, Continuing south on I 55. Detour signs indicating the delay was about 13 minutes with results. That feels about right. (Around Pontiac, Illinois)

1:03 PM – South of Pontiac, Illinois. It is wonderfully flat and open near here. This is prime central Illinois chase country. You can see all the way to the Verizon in almost every direction. And the landscape is almost completely free of distractions, except for the occasional microwave, cellular, or radio tower. There are power lines in the distance. A few scattered trees, I’m really not much here. Basically a blank canvas on which to paint a memory. (Tried to take a picture here, it was cut in half the long horizontal. What’s up with that?)  I have moved far enough south that I have left the 60°F weather in Chicago and I’m surrounded by 80°F temperatures.

1:36PM – stopped at rest area south of Bloomington-Normal, to stretch my legs, visit the restroom, and grab a light snack. Leving the Illinois pollination exhibit behind, By-bye busy little bee!

1:48 PM – Departed rest stop. Continuing south to St. Louis

2:02 PM – Passing the NWS weather radar at Lincoln Illinois (KILX).  It is approximately the midpoint between Chicago and St. Louis along interstate 55.

2:24 PM – travel note: 555 mile post 104 is the location of a rest area on the southbound traffic. This is a little closer to the midpoint of the Chicago St. Louis leg of the journey.

3:24 PM – Just outside St. Louis. Traffic has crawled to a near halt due to construction. We are
grinding along and about 20 miles an hour. Looks like the right lane is closed ahead. We are just south of Worden.

3:37 PM – Exited the construction zone. Very lucky to only have two delays in Illinois. On certain past trips I had 50 miles of construction; this time wasn’t so bad.

4:10 PM – Welcome to Missouri. Took I-255 across to I_44 and beyond. Definitely better than going downtown during rush hour. Temperature here is 91°F. It is like summer! I am loving every minute of it.

5:40 PM- fuel/bathroom/food stop at Roll, Missouri.

8:08 PM – Arrived at Motel 6 North, Springfield, Missouri. Feeling tired but very happy. So THIS is what vacation feels like, I had almost forgotten! Unpacked the van then went to sleep (gently). Zzzzzzz.

TODAY’S ROUTE: 499.3 miles as shown below (map courtesy of DeLorme Street Atlas 2014):

 

20180510 – Nebraska, You’re calling my name!

Today, I’m working my last full day before vacation.

The good news: the atmosphere is NOT stalled out, but storms are happening.
The bad news: I’m hundreds of mile away, and can only admire them from afar.

That beautiful tight ENHANCED blob will provide entertain for somebody. Just not me.

#GoodHunting to those of you who can get there. Take good pictures, please!

A brief seasonal introduction

Howdy!

My name is Lisa Beal. I’ll be touring with Tempest for my 15th trip this year. Where has the time gone!

I’m nearing retirement, but still have plenty of energy for storm days. I’ll need it: I usually carry a hefty assortment of gadgets, earning the name Gadget Girl on tours past.

I live in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, in Bolingbrook, Illinois, and I work as an IT middleware engineer (that means I make big servers go, go, go). Like my buddy, Owen, I’m tied to a keyboard most of my waking hours — and sometimes those hours run really long. To maintain my sanity, I will NOT be answering calls from work on vacation. Would you?

My typical chase-cation starts with a drive to Oklahoma city, usually with a stopover near friends on the way. And I take about 3 days to get home afterwards, if severe weather is around for chasing. I have a dedicated chase vehicle (“Gadgetmobile II“, as the first one was gracefully retired in 2007), and like chase in groups, with a friend or two, or solo. “Gadgetmobile III” is coming soon, probably at the end of the model year (and, yes, I’m leaning toward SUV for the next one).

I’ll be arriving in Oklahoma City on the Saturday evening before the trip so if anyone is wanting to explore locally, let me know!Usually, I make a trip to WalMart on the Sunday before departure, and it is pretty usual to have 2-3 others with me for that store run. let me know if you need to do that.
Text me … to connect for that store run, a lunch or dinner on Sunday, etc. I welcome the company.

II cannot say enough good things about the Tempest crew, especially Bill Reid. He is the storm whisperer, and has put me in front of at least 30 of the tornadoes I’ve seen, among the 50 total I’ve seen. Bill is also an excellent photographer. Don’t be shy if you need camera advice. His his very solid advice.

I will be blogging each evening (or early the next morning) after each chase day. Look for updates at
http://www.underthethunder.org/blog/2018/05/
(once I set it up, in the next few days) . I’ll also be posting (after the fact) to Facebook &/or Twitter. I’m user polarpal99 on both.

See you soon!
lisaB