April 20, 2018 Storms

Eastern New Mexico

We started the day in Van Horn, TX with a little bit of optimism after seeing a thunderstorm the evening before.  The moisture was still really lacking, but the wind shear was really pretty darn good. With any degree of CAPE, it could have produced supercells and tornadoes, but the moisture return continued to be exceptionally weak, even though the south winds were strong enough to kick up a lot of dust.

We zig-zagged our way northward to a location where we felt safe there would be storms. Our chosen route took us east-northeast through Pecos, TX, where we stopped at Walmart to get some supplies.  The road we then took between Pecos and Carlsbad, NM was the busiest oil road I have ever seen (by far).  In every direction, as far as the eye could see, there were oil rigs with crews and a large number of fracking water stations.  The traffic was very busy the whole way, and the road was pretty heavily beaten up from all the traffic, but we could at least drive reasonably close to the speed limit.

WE stopped for lunch at Red Chimney Bar-B-Q in Carlsbad. While we were there, some small storms developed nearby, and when we were done eating, we drove east and northeast from Carlsbad to Lovington and continued northeast into Texas at Bledsoe.  The storms gradually intensified but never became severe.  In fact, there really was little, if any, structure to be seen.  It was too dusty, and the storms were also too high-based. In other words, it was too dry.

We chased the dusty mess east into Lubbock and stopped at Days Inn Lubbock South.  We had dinner at the Caprock Cafe on 34th Street.

The 382 mile drive would have been a difficult drive to take in an electric vehicle in one day. There were no substantial charging stations.  There's an RV park in Carlsbad, a park in Tatum (between Lovington and Bledsoe), and a third RV park in Leveland, all with NEMA 14-50 plugs.  It would probably require about four ours of charging to make the trip, assuming a full charge upon start.  Had we taken the more direct route to Carlsbad from Van Horn, we would have shaved about 100 miles off the trip, but the longer trips sometimes happen when you hedge your bets on where convection will develop.

Some dusty, structure-free thunderstorms on the New Mexico/Texas border near Bledsoe, TX.

Our route for the day.

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