“Are storms comin dearie?”  A fleet of mobile radars and instruments parked at the truck stop in a small town can draw a lot of attention.  Locals are not afraid to ask what we are doing, and most have stories to offer.  Many ask us to take the storms with us when we leave!  Today we saw lots of microbursts – the blasts of air from the thunderstorm to the surface kicked up dust and precip that caused downed powerlines in one town nearby.  We followed the SMART-R today and watched as it made scans of several different storms.  On our way back to our host town we saw rainbows, the sunset, and an incredible lightning storm.  Though we didn’t have the type of storm we wanted today, tomorrow looks better.  It would really be great if we could all get to Missouri/Illinois in 15 hours and have it be flat there too! – Susan Cobb