Date: May 24, 2015
Time: 1:00 - 5:00 PM MDT
Place: La Junta, Kim, CO
Distance: 488 mi (36 positioning, 108 chasing, 344 to home)
Camera: T3i, GoPro3 Silver & Black
Warnings: SVR
Rating: S3

The Chase

11:43 AM: About to leave our Lamar hotel room. We might just head on home or we might chase - storm development today will be the judge. Unfortunately, the synoptic setup today is less favorable than yesterday as the main upper-level flow is well to our south and east. But we might eek out 1500 CAPE and 30 kts of shear - sometimes enough for this area.

12:40 PM: Almost to Las Animas for some lunch at DQ. Already some blips on radar are showing up to our south and east. We will monitor those while we eat. Also encouraging is that a mesoscale discussion went out about 20 minutes ago for southeast Colorado - brief tornadoes mentioned as a possibility.

1:26 PM: Lots of new little radar blips went up during lunch to our south. Best thundershower is currently WSW of La Junta. Since that's towards home anyway, we are heading that direction.

1:44 PM: During the last 10 minutes we watched the La Junta thundershower updraft disappear. Now a new storm has caught my eye coming up from the SSW. Hence we are dropping south out of La Junta on Hwy 109.

2:00 PM: The new storm just got a SVR warning! We should be able to intercept it along Hwy 109 near the Porgatoire River canyon - might make for some neat shots. Bad part is that we will likely lose cell connection and be flying blind.

2:10 PM: Found a beautiful, wide open spot on this little dirt road. Gonna lapse and fly the copter as the storm rumbles towards us. Even better, we still have cell service!

2:45 PM: We decided to drop south through the canyon and pursue our original storm since it continues to stay isolated. But that means we are totally without radar now.

3:00 PM: Found a nice spot on the south rim of the canyon lands. Beautiful vista, but unfortunately our storm has started to fall apart. To add insult, the Ruxton storm is consolidating and looking much better, but now we have no chance on that one.

3:23 PM: Our storm is still struggling but not dead as it passes over the canyon to our north. It's made for a very nice timelapse and slider shots. Now a new wall of convection is going up just a mile or so to our east and putting out some nice crackly thunder.

3:40 PM: Further insult: the Ruxton storm is now headed towards Lamar and is tornado warned. We should have just stayed at the hotel this morning!

4:04 PM: We dropped further south on Hwy 109 - now almost to Kim, CO. Stopped for a minute to fly the quadcopter over some cows. This is my way of dealing with the fact that the supercell heading into Lamar looks like an absolute beast on radar.

4:04 PM: OK last play of the day. We are heading east on Hwy 160 (away from home to Toni's chagrin) to watch the tail end of a line of convection for any interesting development. I am denied permission to go any further than Pritchett.

4:38 PM: Stopping where the highway bends north near Pritchett. The line of storms has strengthened in the last half hour and is now just a few miles to our NNW. Unfortunately for any tail end tornadic development, we are currently sitting in cold outflow. Oh well, the skies look really turbulent and impressive so timelapse will still be worth it.

5:00 PM: Storms are escaping to the northeast now. We are calling it a day. Got some very nice final timelapse including a little orphaned, elevated updraft behind the RFD that had interesting rotation. Fun day all in all, even if the Lamar storm stings.

9:50 PM: Safely home in ABQ - plenty of time for a good night's sleep before work tomorrow.

Recap, Filmmaking Notes, and Lessons Learned