The last two days were not as promising as the Thursday and would offer chasing both days, with hail as the main risk and with very slim tornado chances. However, an option appeared to us at this moment. Northwestern Missouri had opened up to be a potential target for tornadoes on Day 6. We had to choose between two rather meager chase days in Texas or use Day 5 to go to Missouri in order to be able to chase there on Day 6, followed by a nightmarish drive back home in order to get back in time for our flights in the morning on Day 7. The decision was unanimous: Missouri.
We went for a great BBQ-lunch, and as with many meals on this tour it took quite some time (most restaurants are not prepared for 15 people suddenly coming in). During that time, the situation changed however. Missouri started to look much more of a conditional target where a certain chain of events needed to happen to get storms. Basically, there was a great risk of putting two (meager) chase days at risk to take a long detour – for nothing. So, we went for Texas again.
This day was in fact my birthday so I was pretty ok with this decision as it would mean chasing on my birthday, rather than just driving.
This day was a day for hail and hail was what we got. We went core chasing in order to experience some large hail first hand. We did end up in a hail storm with pea sized hail, which was kind of fun to play around with.
We continued following the storm to get back into the core, but had a hard time keeping up. Eventually we had to give up the chase but having followed in its tracks the ground was filled with the massive hail it had spewed out. Even though we came ~25 minutes after the core, in ~85 degrees Fahrenheit, we still found hen egg sized hail. According to the locals, there had been baseball sized hail when it all came down. It must have been a massive hail storm as we also found a snake that had been killed by the hail storm.
