Day 3 - we hit weather

Day 3 (Wednesday) started with an early departure from Barstow (and a yummy hotel free breakfast).

Naturally, we just had to stop in Needles to experience the heat. It was 110 when we stopped - gasp! As we drove further into Arizona, we began to see some of the clouds we've been hoping to see - the ones associated with convection. By now, Mike Voss had the ThreatNet going, as well as radar etc. imagery on the laptop.

As we approached Flagstaff mid-afternoon, we decided to push on east and try to set up under or near a cell. We pulled off near a golf course, reasoning that there were plenty of trees and golfers to attract lightning! It worked! We got to see/hear lightning/thunder quite close. At one point Gina's hair was standing up on end. At which point we dove back into the vans :-)

We wound up about 25 miles east watching another cell come over. We launched our first balloon of the trip (yay!), and experienced more lightning. Things seemed to be happening to fast for RAWS etc. deployment.

To emphasize that this is a CLASS (3 units crammed into under 2 weeks), we had a longish class/forecasting session at night (8:30-10:30 pm). By the end, the giggles were rampant, but all the students got their forecasts in. Each student is required to forecast the values of 41 quantities on a daily basis as part of the course, and each night the forecasts are verified in the group discussion.

Tomorrow looks like the last good day for convection, so we are planning another early start and long day!