Trip Preparation

31/03/2008- 33 Days to Go

Some very intense looking storms going on overnight in OK and SE KS, tornado watches are out and the radars look amazing. Later tonight looks interesting too, as there are plenty of warnings out for supercell storms and possible tornadoes. Looking at the data, I’m going for a chase base of Hugo in Choctaw county, OK. We shall see if my crash course in the atmospheric physics has sunk in…

BTW, anyone looking for some good background on storm chasing can find it here:
http://www.extremeinstability.com/topics.htm

30/03/2008 – 34 Days To Go

Just watched the channel 5 “Storm Chasers” programme. Its not at all bad, it depicts the often frustrating and mundane side of chasing more than some of the Nat Geo type programmes, where it seems all you have to do is drive your car around the block in any Kansas town and you’ll chance upon an F3. The reality is lots of long days on the road, often for very little result. A split second decision on which cell to chase after 6 hours on the road can be the difference between success and failure. Mind you, “failure” to many storm chasers means seeing a non-tornadic storm with a good lightning show – that would be a very good second best in my book.

Also had the “pleasure” of watching the film “Twister” again over the weekend, this time with my 7 year old daughter. “Will you see flying cows and barns when you go, Daddy?” I’ll be lucky to see an F1 from 2 miles away…

28/03/2008 - 36 Days To Go

We’re due to fly BA out of T5 on 03/05/2008, and its not been the most auspicious of openings for the new Terminal at Heathrow. Tales of mass cancellations, luggage piled up having not been put on people’s flights, and the “fast” bag drop being anything but.

It does beggar belief that after such a long run-in period with supposed stress-testing of the facility by “pretend” passengers that it could go so catastrophically wrong from day 1. Not enough parking spaces for staff and insufficient training for staff on the new systems? Doesn’t sound like much testing has gone on there at all…

They expect things to calm down during April, but then they move long-haul flights from T4 over to T5 at the end of the month, 3 days before we go. Another potential for gridlock there, methinks. Trouble is, if our luggage gets left behind, its not as if we can have it delivered on to a hotel a few days later – we don’t know where we’re going to be!

My timetable for travelling down to T5 on the Saturday is somewhat tight – 6am train from York, hoping to be at T5 for 9.30am, flight is 11.40am. Can’t afford too many delays dropping the bags off! Luckily all the check-in should be done on-line by then, its just ditching a bag and clearing security