This was perhaps the worse chase day I’ve every had that I can remember! While it was a long trip, and storms didn’t really cooperate for good chasing (at least in Southern Kansas), that wasn’t what made it bad. It was the fires!
You couldn’t drive 25 miles without either seeing large patches of blacked earth, or a recent burned area still smoldering, or any many cases even an active fire burning. Fires were burning down the dryline all the way in to central Texas! All of this smoke, combined with dust from the dust storm in west Texas was being drawn right up in to Oklahoma and Kansas. By mid-afternoon I was experiencing significant respiratory distress as well has my eyes were burning something awful and quite red. Even today I am still irritated from it.
It seemed no matter where you went you couldn’t get away from it, even in the rain! The above picture was about the best I got out of the day, and gives you an idea of the near constant eerie lighting from the smoke and dust.
About an hour before sunset, with storms heading into very unfavorable terrain for night chasing, and the fact I felt horrible, I decided to call it off and headed back home! I was going to take some photos of some of the fires after dark, but I just literally felt too horrible to mess with it.
