Fire-Induced Supercell: May 11, 2018

Large wild centered near Goodnight, TX.

This was one of the most interesting chase days in my career and it seems fitting that it would happen in the Texas panhandle. Due to the variety of storms I’ve seen in the Texas panhandle with such varied structure over the years, I’ve used a term that someone before me came up with, “panhandle magic.” One could certainly argue that Friday was full of panhandle magic.

Starting the day, I slowly headed toward the eastern portion of the Texas panhandle. I knew that at least some thunderstorms would try to form, but given a lack of more substantial low-level moisture, a sizable capping inversion and weak convergence, the prospect for any robust or long-lived storms was highly conditional, at best.

While ponderinging the convective potential around mid-afternoon, I noticed that a wildfire near Goodnight was growing larger. Its smoke plume showed up very well on both radar and satellite. Even though I am not particularly thrilled by the prospect of fire chasing, I was nearby and it was worth a shot. After all, even if no thunderstorms formed, at least I would have a fire to investigate.

Once I was within about 15 miles of the fire, traffic picked up dramatically and I learned that officials were detouring roads due to the growing fire and large smoke plume. This was fine by me, because at the same time, I noticed that a dry thunderstorm was producing more and more lightning with time, so I turned around and decided to head in that direction.

Before I even had the opportunity to do so, I noticed that a focused area of radar echoes downwind of the fire suggested that an actual “regular” thunderstorm was forming. Even though it was disconnected from lightning activity to the south, knowing that there was elevated instability and at least marginally favorable deep layer wind shear for organized convection, I decided to go toward the slowly growing storm.

At first, the storm did not look visually impressive. I had not encountered fire-induced thunderstorm activity before, but I figured that due to the smoke plume and somewhat dry low-level environment, organization would probably take some time The wait paid off as eventually, the storm began to show a more pronounced base and a rotating mesocyclone could be seen.

Initially, I was too close to the storm to take a proper photo, but I got on I-40 and went east of Shamrock for a better shot. Once off the exit ramp, I was able to capture the picture below. I really did not expect anything like this during this chase. I figured that I might see some weak convection or even a dry thunderstorm, but a robust supercell? That seemed fairly unlikely. That’s the beauty of storm chasing. Sometimes modest environments lead toward photogenic storms. In this case, although the fire alone was not the sole reason for this storm, it certainly worked as a trigger, a catalyst of sorts for convective development.

A supercell thunderstorm over Shamrock, TX.

I stayed with the storm as it drifted east, but it was slowly beginning to weaken as sunset approached and convective inhibition increased. By the time the storm moved into western Oklahoma, it was losing its noteworthy visual appearance and radar imagery suggested the once robust supercell was fading away.

Given the unique scenario during this chase, it may very well be the most interesting one this year and it certainly ranks high on my list, proving that once more, there could be a bit of panhandle magic.