Special thanks to the
Colorado Rockies television network for the nowcasting last night as the Mile High team got spanked 15 to 5. Also thanks to the Lakewood and Arvada police officers I mingled with last night for allowing me to venture into excellent viewing pearches along 6th Ave and at the top of the Red Rocks Community College campus near the water towers. Unfortunately the lightning was few and far between early, then went to nil after dark, so I ended up empty-handed after a 90 minute stretch spent mostly at Red Rocks. I guess it was just a treat to actually have weaker storms fire unexpectedly, but their timing wasn't the best as most of the show fired off to the Northeast along I-76 towards Fort Morgan and Sterling. The upsides to this are the perches I was able to use this time which will undoubtly come in handy later on. Lakewood allowed me to park myself on the on-ramp to 6th at Union to shoot a great view of downtown to the east. This isn't exactly new as I've used this place many times to do skyline shots. The Red Rocks perch was great, and the Arvada cops came to investigate me as a suspicious person originally, but after talking to him, he quickly became interested and allowed me and my car to remain parked at the top of the dirt road near the water towers to shoot. He was curious where I had come up as my parking angle showed that I didn't use the road he came up on. I pointed out my entrance to him which was a helluva lot easier to get up on as opposed to that back road which is very steep. But again, no lightning pictures to speak of as the best bolts were well before dark or while I was enroute. Tack on another 44 miles to this year's odometer.
I'm going to voluntarily suck up the next few days in terms of working over chasing. Several factors come into play with this, but the main thing is Sunday and beyond. Pending how Tropical System Arlene plays out, Sunday could be a very good day to chase. Monday has potential as well in this. Me driving pizzas over the next few days would cash me up enough to run around for a couple days. Weekend tips are hard to pass up when they can pay your way into the Plains for a couple days. Chances remain large enough (albeit, still small) to hold onto some slim hope that a couple decent storms may roll off the mountains and hit the Southwestern parts of Denver pretty hard. Also, the potential for post-sunset lightning also keeps me hopeful that the next few days won't be total losses. In any case, I'm playing the next few days off by my own choice in hopes that Arlene doesn't shut off our moisture supply and allows for a couple good chase days for me.
As for Sunday, a small issue may arise if I have to venture beyond my 500 mile bubble to get to a target. Closing up shop Saturday night will land me at home by 1am, which if I have to drive 7 hours for a target, may require a long day chasing on as little as 3 hours of sleep. While something similar has been
done before, it does make for a very long day. The differences from May 15, 2003 and this; less sleep to work off of, but I do have the benefit of not having to rush back home so I can crash out wherever I wish and sleep a bit before the next day. Also, I may have a follow-up chase Monday which may require an early start. That's too far out to plan, but with the 4 free days, I could chase very far east without much worry. The forecast is a bit far in advance, but the models prog a negative tilted trough sweeping through over this time period. Moisture should hopefully remain in place through this time and hopefully aid in good storm development. I'll dive more into the forecasting details early tomorrow morning and again in the afternoon and begin to make arrangements to chase at least on Sunday. I'll up my chasing alert tomorrow if the forecast warrents.
