Tornado Alley - Birthday Tornadoes in Cope, Colorado

When I booked this trip, the only thing I kept wishing for was to see a tornado on my birthday.

Well.. I can honestly say that this was probably my best birthday ever. We saw 5 tornadoes (that was the agreed upon final number) and we enjoyed a well earned steak dinner. The restaurant was packed with chasers. I had a margarita that I could barely finish (seriously, do Americans even measure drinks or is it all free-pour? 😂). 

Those tornadoes happened so fast. The whole thing was over in about 40 minutes. That cell popped up and it was wham, bam, thank you ma'am. It got the job done and was out of there.

The only bummer is that I feel myself coming down with a cold. Probably from the lack of sleep and stress leading up to the trip. This happened in 2015 as well.

I *really* want to go though my photos and videos and update my blog but we're meeting at 9am (it's just past midnight) so I have to sleep if I'm to fight off this cold. Tomorrow is another chase day.

Here is video of that day.

Tornado Alley - A little warm up in Kanorado

Goodland, KS

We didn't have huge hopes for today so we were pleasantly surprised by a really nice cell on the Kansas/Colorado border, in Kanorado. At one point it became tornado warned and had a lot of lightning. We *may* have seen a tornado on two separate occasions, but it was very hard to tell because it was getting dark and it was low contrast.

Here are my best pics of the day.

Of course I had to include my post chase hair.

Oh and I also have to mention.. I ended up clocking a 60km/hr wind gust with my Kestrel! I love this
thing.

On a side note, I'm technically in Mountain Time, but my phone is still picking up a signal from a tower on Central Time.. So according to my phone, it's already my birthday! But according to my location.. It's not. I've lost the concept of time at this point. I don't even know if I'm jetlagged or not. Time feels like it's completely slowed down. I can't believe I only got here yesterday