Bad Road Networks in the Alley

[Paul Austin]

Anywhere south of I-10 from San Antonio to El Paso. Some of the roads aren't bad, but the network is a little sparse, and many of the roads, even the nice paved ones are prone to flash flooding. We lost a storm last year due to flooding and washed out pavement on US 377 between Rock Springs and Junction.

Add to the MO portion of the Ozarks the AR portion. Except the interstates, the NW portion of AR has extremely winding roads and little visibility due to trees and hills/mountains. I know it's outside of your alley, but the eastern 1/3 of AR is actually pretty good until you have to find a Mississippi River crossing point - very few of those.

Cherry county, NE - decent roads, just not very many, and the sand hills limit visibility. EDIT - Laura, you beat me to it. There is one road going E/W along the southern portion of the county. Two major roads may sound like plenty in some counties, but Cherry is a LARGE area.

Jeff, are you referring to the Paul's Valley area? I-35, but not too much else, and it's forested and hilly. I've got to agree with the E OK/W AR mountainous areas. The Poteau Mountains into the Ouachita Mountains areas extend eastward to around I-30 in AR.

 

[Dann Cianca]

From my experience, SE Montana can be added to the list, although this area is on the outskirts of the alley. Quite hilly and very little road options... try chasing a supercell and viewing a tornado with that, blech!

Don't forget the radar black hole there too, haha! Beautiful country, though!

 

[Darrin Rasberry]

It looks like the corn belt is showing up as forest in image above. I never have any luck chasing in Iowa but is not because of trees. The image below shows areas of forest in the US. It is not nearly as bad as the first image would make to think.

http://www.violentplains.com/2008_Pictures/US%20Trees.jpg

FWIW, here is my depiction of chase alley:
http://www.violentplains.com/2008_Pictures/US%20Chase%20Country.jpg

Nice reference at the top, but you accidentally yellowed in the Waggoner ranch in NCNT TX

A comment about N Central Missouri, while I'm still emotional about it: BAD, BAD, BAD area to chase, every inch of the way. I was restarting my phone constantly because the networks kept jumping and knocking the tethering out of tune, and the area around the Missouri river, where all the roads tend to want to wrap around to the point of absurdity, is like a roller coaster.

South/SE Iowa isn't too bad, but don't get caught on the roads there during night storms unless you have infrared vision (like the truckers there somehow do).

 

[Bobby Prentice]

It looks like the corn belt is showing up as forest in image above.

The US Forest Service (USFS) provided me with a map of "Forest Biomass of the Conterminous US" that I have posted on my Storm Chasing web page. This map appears to provide a more accurate depiction of the tree obstructions storm chasers would encounter out in the field.

Source: USDA Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, http://fiatools.fs.fed.us

Note: I have a higher resolution version of this image if anybody needs it (they just have to promise to provide the credit listed above if they use it).

 

[Heather Moser]

Hello everyone! This is my first post here on Stormtrack.

I have not had the opportunity yet to chase in many of the notoriously poor places (Ozarks, SW Texas, etc.), but I will add to Darrin's loathing of northern Missouri. I've chased there several times and have never had any success.

While the rural roads are paved in most places, they are not well marked and have a nasty habit of making sharp turns in places where you can't see it coming. The terrain is hilly and full of trees, and the cell service is abysmal even along parts of I-35.

 

[Shane Adams]

I can say with confidence that the TX180 corridor between Breckenridge and Mineral Wells is a waste of time.

 

[Jason Burns]

Eastern Colorado Roads

I agree with Bob Schafer about the road network being sparse in southeast Colorado (it is very sparse west of US 287, south of the Arkansas River). However as far as summarizing eastern Colorado roads, I would differentiate between north of I-70 (farmland with some ranching), and south of I-70 (ranchland with some farming).

North of I-70 generally features a decent road network, at least compared to areas to the south, but with a few major exceptions that have very few road options. One of these is the area bounded by I-70, State Highway 71, and US 36. The lack of roads here make it difficult to go straight east of the I-70 corridor, for example to reach Highway 71 from Deer Trail or Agate. Other areas with limited road options in northeast colorado include Colorado sandhills areas, such as south of Yuma and north of Wray.

If anyone has Benchmark Maps' Colorado Road & Recreation Atlas, the map on page 36 illustrates this pretty well.

 

[Dick McGowan]

I'll never chase south of I-70 or east of US 71 in Missouri ever again. Twice, we've found ourselves in the Mark Twain National Forest just a couple of miles behind a tornadic storm...only to get nauseous, from the constant braking and weaving on their award-winning pavement. And even if you're doing the speed limit at a whopping 45 mph, you'll get pretty ticked off from straining your neck from constantly looking straight up. If you're lucky, you might catch a glimpse of the back side of the anvil. Once wasn't enough for us, we had to experience that frustration a couple of times! (2/16/06 and 9/22/06)

 

[Mikel Shively]

Having lived in Northern MO. nearly all my life, I can attest to the bad road conditions here. However MoDot is putting up signs to warn of curves on nearly all of the county blacktops. There is quite a few trees here. However, while the conditions are less than ideal, it is not impossible to chase here. I have alltel cell phone service, and have service >90% of the time, no matter where I am, unless I am in a deep valley. Also, Alltel has upgraded their towers here to EVDO service. I agree with Dick that south of I-70 is terrible.

 

[Bill Tabor]

I'd say the area west of Austin in the Hill Country is challenging. There are roads, but they may go odd directions and you are dealing with large tree covered hills with turns, etc. There are many farm and ranch roads but you kind of have to be in 'expert mode' to actually use these while chasing. Otherwise you may find yourself in a bind with a flash flooded low water crossing or a road that suddenly dead ends in a ranchers gate. Use Roads or Texas or the Delorme Street Atlas paper maps.

I've heard that along the Red River finding workable bridges for crossing can at times be difficult based on a storm scenario.

I just posted about the zero cell reception area between San Angelo, Brownwood, to Llano, and actually extending northwest of Brownwood some before you get to I20.

I have other bad road areas, but they would be outside your area such as east of College Station Tx, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri. Some of these states do have chaseable areas though.

I have other areas