Day 5: Heading home - later

By DAN ROBINSON
Editor/Photographer

Hold that thought. Staying in Tulsa today to spend some time with observer friends watching storm videos and swapping stories. Possible lightning opportunities tomorrow in NE OK, then a possible expedition in western OK on Thursday. *Maybe* going home Friday. Back at another Tulsa Starbucks today to set up my 'portable office' for the afternoon.

Posted 6:54AM CDT:
I decided to spend the night here in Tulsa before beginning the drive eastbound (thanks to the hospitality of Justin and Bridget Teague). There may be a few needle-in-a-haystack opportunities this week, but none that particularly impress me. The short term and medium-range outlook doesn't look good for tornadoes - in fact we may be looking at a long downtime in the Plains for at least a week. May hasn't even arrived yet, so there's a lot of the season left. No need to spend money now trying to scrape something from marginal setups.

So, barring an encounter with storms on the way home today, that will do it for 2009 storm photography expedition #1. Despite no tornado intercepts, I'm very happy with the trip so far - the goal of coming out here is to bring home a couple of nice storm photos or videos, be it tornadoes, lightning or whatever. So, I feel that this was a successful venture. Also, my total expenses so far are low enough (gas is well below $2 all over the Plains) that a second expedition should be doable. Once I get home, it will be back to the long-range model watching exercises for a possible trip #2.

I will also try to get complete expedition logs up this week with more photos and a video clip or two. Stay tuned!

Safe Driving Dan !
- Posted by Mick from UK