Murphy's Law

This week has been nothing short of a weather slump. Each day has had its own individual problems as to why the weather just didn't cooperate, but we have been making the best of the situation, as you may have seen by reading the previous entries.

Today we woke up at a brutal 5am this morning in Denver, in an attempt to intercept possible severe weather that could have possibly popped up in central Nebraska. Of course, that is where the title of this comes into play. After driving 400 some odd miles and stopping for lunch at Arby's in Grand Island, Nebraska, we could just not see anything developing and that the factors that go into forming a thunderstorm were diminishing rapidly. Low dew points in the 50's and temperatures rocketing into the mid to high 80s didn't help things to shape up. We headed south to a developing field of small cumulus clouds, in the hopes that some would eventually grow into towers and possibly become thunderstorms, preferably severe. Well, long story short, a sufficient lack of moisture and low dew points made any chance of storms forming totally disappear, along with any hopes we had at seeing it happen.

This goes along perfectly with the definition of Murphy's Law, which states "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." just in case you didn't know. Every chasing opportunity or event we have participated in has just not worked out how we would have liked it to, even though we have found ourselves in textbook position. There is just honestly, nothing we can do but hope that Mother Nature decides to throw us a gift, in the form of an outbreak, supercells, or even just some photogenic natural phenomena. Any of these would be nice, as we have had little success so far due to the disaster of a weather pattern.

But we have made the best of this class, and again tried to do so when the weather fizzled out today. Basically, after we realized that the skies would disappoint us again, we decided to make a one mile detour just outside of Lebanon, Kansas. If you know your geography trivia, you would know that this is the official Geographical Center of the Contiguous 48 States. Yes, we go to all the crazy places. There was not much here really, besides the official marker, a sign that read "WELCOME TO THE CENTER OF THE USA," and a random roaming rooster. There was also a chapel on site that we left our name and where we were from, for whomever was interested to see in a future visit. The large white rooster was the most popular among the chasers. This was the highlight of the day really, because the weather never panned out.

We found a great deal in a hotel again tonight here in Abilene, Kansas, which makes this my 6th new state that I have visited on this amazing trip. I find the terrain around here to be much like my own fine state of Indiana. That is where I write tonight, on the second floor of a hotel here in sleepy Kansas. I apologize for the blog being pretty short and rather uninteresting, but that is just how the day has been. We drove over five hundred an fifty miles today, traveled in two different time zones and drove through three different states. Maybe the weather will improve here soon for us and fellow storm chasers across the plains who are facing the same disappointing conditions we have been seeing the past week or so. That is what we are all hoping for at this point. Again, I thank you for reading and comments are appriciated. Thank you.