A life spent chasing tornadoes?

So, I'm out here in the foothills of the Rockies ... attending the WRF workshop. Some of the talks were interesting; others were not (to me anyway). Coming out of the meeting after the last presentation, I was reminded of why I got into meteorology in the first place ... the sky was darkening to the north and thunder murmured from above. Having no real plans for the evening (other than to skip the conference reception) ... I decided to chase the storm like all those cool dudes and dudettes on the Discovery Channel. The radio indicated that it was severe, was over the airport, and was heading northeast.

At the beginning, it was more of a drive than a chase. Drove east through the towns of Dacono and Fort Lupton seeing only one (very cool) bolt of lightning. But as I merged onto I-76 East and could go the 75 mph speed limit ... there was a rapid narrowing of the gap between Dolberry and the darkest skies. Frigthening pulses of lightning surged from cloud to earth at 15 second intervals just to the south of the highway. I was trying to get out ahead of the storm ... to get to a point where I could watch it roll in.

I stopped in Roggen ... on a little hill ... but it was clear that the real action was further south and east. Got back on the interstate and sped on to the little town of Wiggins CO. Several miles before the exit, I saw a small shelf cloud off to the left. Called my radar back in NC (thanks Kyle) who confirmed what was becoming apparent ... I'd gotten right in the path of a big storm. Drove south down a narrow road, just like the one you see real StormChasers drive on all the time ... finally stopping when I saw some clouds lower than the rest.

I watched them for a while ... they seemed a long way off at first ... but then they seemed really close. The wind started to gust ... maybe 40 mph ... and then the rain began blowing sideways. I'll admit I was a little scared even though there was no real hints of a tornado ... just a nice sized Great Plains thunderstorm. I did a U-turn ... really a sideways T-turn ... and headed back to the interstate in a driving rain.

(There eventually was a tornado from the storm ... 80 miles downwind.)

When I was scared there ... for those first adrenelin-fueled seconds that accompany any good downdraft ... I wondered why in the world I'd driven some 70 miles to get in the path of a storm. Driving back to Boulder, wondered further if the evening was a little metaphor for life on Earth ... and whether one should chase highly-transient objects that can be both really cool (popularity, success, wins, wins, wins) yet are often suddenly destructive.

It'd be cliched if it weren't true ... but I saw a beautiful rainbow on the way back ... heading away from the storm ... heading back to a temporary home.