Texas Panhandle Storms: May 18, 2018
Developing thunderstorm NW of Canadian, TX
The day started in Dodge City to keep multiple chase targets in range, but it became clear fairly quickly that I was going to favor the Oklahoma/Texas panhandles. The moist axis verified well and there was even pooling of lower 60s dew-points, which was better than what most of the morning computer models were projecting.
I wandered toward Canadian, TX around mid-afternoon and I would end up finding myself staying in that general area for most of the chase. A thundrerstorm initiated northwest of Canadian and began to quickly organize.
It wasn’t long before the storm did another left-right split, similar to what I encountered on the day before and not that far away from the same area as well. The southern storm seemed the most dominant, so I stayed with it. As it drifted northeast, although its updraft was relatively small, it began to take on a striated appearance as there was clearly substantial mid-level rotation.
Striated supercell near Canadian, TX
Seemingly out of nowhere, a tornado warning was issued for the storm. My visual consisted of a messy base that was elevated well above the surface, suggesting that there was no imminent tornado threat. Radar velocity scans looked impressive, but they were more indicative of rotation aloft, due to the elevation of the beam, which makes sense given isolated very large hail in the area. As has been the case many times this chase season, low-level shear was not substantial enough during the stages when storms were more isolated to support a more robust tornado threat.
Storms began to merge into a broken line and I decided to loop around to the west and then the south to get in position to watch the tail-end cell. For a time, that storm showed some signs of becoming a mature supercell, but that didn’t last long, as it gradually weakened into the late afternoon hours. While I was working on catching up with the storm, I encountered some large hail and sloshed down an increasingly washed out dirt road, which I ultimately had to bail out of. The timing worked out, as I got to witness a double rainbow as I was getting ready to turn around.
The chase capped off with mammatus, once again, which only seemed fitting.
A mammatus display at sunset, just south of Canadian, TX.
This was the third consecutive chase day in the panhandles, an area which is one of my favorite areas to chase. The only other area that comes close in western Kansas and I’m not really sure which I favor at this time. What was nice about Friday was that I avoided the masses up in western Kansas and did not see one chaser on the road at all, so I largely had the panhandle storms to myself. The “panhandle magic” term may be bordering on overused, but I’ve found that almost every storm chase I’ve had in the panhandles has wound up a success.
A double rainbow amidst a washed out road west of Canadian, TX is
