Monday May 30

Matt, Gregg, John and I are currently at the Super 8 in Trinidad, CO this morning (along I-25 in southern Colorado). We left Garden City, KS yesterday morning to play the developing upslope along/just north of the frontal boundary in far southeast CO/far northeast NM. We said goodbye to "Meso Ed" in Garden City -- was nice to have him with us on Saturday. From west of Boise City, OK and the Black Mesa area, we watched cells initially develop roughly along the CO/NM border from Springfield, CO area westward during the early/mid afternoon. Seeing this multicellular development die/congeal amidst the marginal shear, we eventually decided to bust west to play any development off the higher terrain near Trinidad, CO/Raton, NM (closer to our original target). Having rather limited road options, we had to go to Clayton, NM and then northwest to Des Moines, NM. As we headed northwest out of Clayton, we had a nice/distant vantage of a cell around/east of the Raton Mesa. The cell would soon merge with another supercell moving off the higher terrain near Trinidad. We'd eventually encounter a couple of inch hail drifts several miles east of Trinidad -- the hail had probably fell an hour or so earlier.

In regards to today (Monday), I am fairly optimistic for supercells and possibly a few tornadoes around this area. We tentatively plan to drift east out of Trinidad, or possibly eastward out of Raton. Road options again are VERY limited. Would expect us to spend much of the afternoon east of the Raton Mesa near Trinchera/Branson and maybe eventually into the Kim, CO area.

As an aside, nice to see the area/terrain around here with various mesas/mountains and old volcanoes. Coming into Trinidad last night, was also nice to reminisce about where we'd seen a
tornado in 2001 just east of Trinidad.

Tuesday looks to find us in the TX Panhandle.