Day 7 - Volcanoes and Dilemmas - May 16, 2019

Thursday dawned and it was time to (reluctantly) bid farewell to Canyon. At least for today; there was a chance we would be back on Friday (or even the following Monday) depending on where the storms formed. But for today we were headed back to New Mexico to check out the Capulin (Cah-poo-leen) volcano.

Capulin

Capulin, which means “choke cherry” in Spanish, is part of a field of dormant volcanoes in the far NE corner of the state. As we drove, we saw a few of the other volcanoes. They stood in stark contrast to the otherwise flat land. In all my travels across the heart of the country, I had yet to visit Capulin. Seeing all those other cinder cones had me pretty excited.

We stopped at the visitors center to pay the entry fee. Then it was up a narrow, winding road to the edge of the caldera. We were nearly 9000 feet above sea-level when we arrived at the top. I could definitely feel the reduced oxygen content.

The views of the volcano and the surrounding flat plains were amazing. It made me wonder what it would be like to observe storms from there. Honestly, probably not the best idea because of lightning. We were at a high enough elevation to see the snow-covered slopes of Taos, NM in the distance.

Real and spectacular

View from Capulin. Photo: Hunter Reeves

In the Capulin caldera

Fortunately, the plumbing was stopped up while we were there.

There were two trails you could walk while at the top. One went around the rim of the caldera while another went down into the caldera itself. I guess I was the only one who did not complete the caldera trail; it was quite steep and I tired quickly after a short ascent. I returned to the parking lot and walked down into the caldera. It was a fascinating experience despite the physical toll.

Take the Capulin tour with Shaley Dawson:

Our adventure complete, we headed for Dumas, TX to spend the night. Dumas was a location which offered many possibilities. It was ideally located for any storms that developed in the Panhandle region. And if for some reason that possibility evaporated, we could still get up early the next morning and make our way either north (Nebraska) or further south (Ft. Stockton).

Outlook for Friday. Decisions, decisions

Probabilities of severe weather. The black hatching indicates the probability of significant severe weather (Hail > 2", EF2+ tornadoes, a/or Wind gusts of 65+ kts)

After dinner, Greg and I met to discuss look over the data and discuss the possibilities. It was clear to us that we had three possible options:

1) Get up and go north to the Nebraska Panhandle, where the capping inversion would weaken and tornadic storms would develop.

2) Get up and head south towards Ft. Stockton where the atmospheric dynamics weren’t quite as impressive, but there was a lot of instability.

3) Wait in the Panhandle. There would be plenty of wind shear and instability, enough to rival or surpass the other two, but a strong cap would be in place most of the day. The key would be the dry line and any uplift it could provide.

    Of the three, option one had the least risk. We felt strongly that there would be tornadoes in Nebraska. But that would take us out of position for chasing on Saturday. We thought there was a decent risk for storms in eastern Texas in the late afternoon on Saturday. Chasing in Nebraska would leave us out of range for Saturday.

     The same could be said for option two (Ft. Stockton). Tornadoes might be a little less likely there because of the weaker dynamics. But the weather models were showing only a storm or two developing; less competition  meant easier access to a greater amount of instability. But, again, chasing there would put us out of position for Saturday.

      Option three was the riskiest as there was no guarantee that the cap would break. It was entirely possible that we could sit there all day with nothing to show for it. But, if it did we would have three more shots at chasing, including Monday which was shaping up to be a full-fledged tornado outbreak.

     Rather than make the call ourselves, we contacted the students and asked for their input. After presenting all of the choices, they elected to stay in the Panhandle in order to maximize our chasing opportunities. With that decided, we all went to bed to see what Friday would bring.