Severe Weather on the Plains

Weather report on 5/24/2020 showed thunderstorms likely on the eastern plains of Colorado. So without hesitation, I grabbed my camera, filters, lenses, tripod, cheez-its, and water and started driving "that way". I had no destination in mind, other than I wanted to drive roads I hadn't driven before (more on that later in other posts).

Some of the towns I passed through were Kit Carson, Eads, Lamar, Springfield, and Kim. None of which are your typical Colorado vacation spots (although it's really pretty near Kim in the Comanche National Grassland area).

Things started to perk up around 3:00 pm. I could see clouds to my west. By 3:45 pm MT, it was game on. It got real serious real quick. I'm not certain this is a tornado, but at the time it looked pretty convincing. Still does, actually. Might just be some weird outflows from the storm that made it look like a tornado.

The storm(s) were approaching from the south west, so I had to back track northeast to stay ahead of it. I'd drive down the road, pull over, take some shots, then get back in and drive on (more scenes coming). I was skirting the edge of the storm for about 45 minutes. With limited roads, there was no way to stay in front of it so I found the least likely spot for hail, pulled over, and let it pass overhead. Unfortunately, I did get hailed on (marble size at times), but that was a lot better than the golf ball size hail I saw driving around after it passed.

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