Big Country!

Things really didn't look great today, looked like too many storms moving along and north of the front, but since it was a Monday and I was off we just had to get out. We originally targeted Stephensville to Mineral Wells but the dryline was taking it's sweet time. So Abilene made more sense if we wanted to see a storm before dark . We met Tim Marshall along with other chasers also from DFW that had made the trip to the "Big Country" at the local Denny's for a bite while we waited for something, anything to happen.

Finally something appeared on the old radar southeast of us so we were all off on the chase down Hwy 36 to intercept. We settled in front of the storm just west of Oplin for some pics. A rain foot told most of the story here and the storm was moving mostly to the north and it's high base kept splitting so we left in favor of the next storm.

We exited east then south on Hwy 283 for Coleman and the next storm which was starting to look better. Once again this storm was splitting and heading north so we took Hwy 84 northwest for a better view. Soon we could see a wallcloud off to the west and watched several attempts to produce but the best show was the lightning.

One big problem today was that it seemed that every storm was "tornado warned" by the San Angelo office. This definitely did not verify in the field and cluttered things up quite a bit. It's hard to know what's really going on when you can't trust the warning on day's like this. Still a fun chase.

Bet your life... but great video!

Well known for getting too close and getting the "Money" shot, here's the latest from Canada this time. This is impressive but I'm wondering what happens when a satellite vortex forms in the wrong place or a vortex maxes out. They're toast!

Wisconsin Scars!

On June 7th, 2007 tornadoes left their mark on the mid-west. Click on the image for more.

Windbags

Drove down towards Odessa and the old OFB but never found backed winds. These storms looked interesting for a while but were outflow dominant. The last one near Kermit was tornado warned but lifted it's skirt and poofed at us so we started the long drive back to dfw early. Oh well it was fun anyway.

 
 

Dimmitt

We drove a long way from DFW for this storm but the route was pretty clear 20 to Sweetwater then up 84 to Lubbock. Before we got there the only target we had was near Hereford so we went up 27 to Plainview then on to Hart where we drove west to 385 which the storm seemed to be following southbound through Dimmitt. We saw the reported tornado's peaking through the rain a couple of times but the real show was when we took a step back to see the whole storm.

 

 

 

Oh Vera!

 

Headed for Childress but was cut short by HP beast already there. We diverted at Vernon to get in front as it approached Thalia. Looked outflow dominant with a barrage of lightning. We worked our way down to Hwy 114 and east of Vera where if appeared meanest then blew it's guts and chased us back home.

Finally got to chase

Finally got to chase with Mike Cohen this day. There was lots of promise but too many storms and not enough cape. The highlight was the frogs croaking loudly in a flooded field. So far all the good storms have been either too far away or on a work day. Still I'm glad to be working so I'm not complaining.