West Texas/Panhandle: May 7, 2019

This storm chase was all over the place. I left Oklahoma City for Amarillo, TX first thing in the morning and arrived earlier than expected. Despite this time savings, storms were already developing by early afternoon. I jumped on an initial supercell just north of Amarillo, even though it was fairly clear that it was elevated. That, combined with weak low-level shear suggested that this was mainly going to be a hail producer.

Hail, it did produce. I found spiky/jagged hail up to golf ball size about six miles northwest of Fritch, TX. I’m sure the biggest hail was even larger, but the road network around Lake Meredith was challenging. I did find a way to keep up with the storm for a while (avoiding the hail core), but eventually decided to head south.

While clusters of storms were developing all across the panhandle, a discrete storm fired just north of Lubbock and that was my next target. I knew that I wouldn’t get there until at least 5 p.m., but I figured that would be plenty of time, since the low-level jet wasn’t going to start cranking until late afternoon/early evening.

I got to Tulia, TX at 5:09 p.m., just moments before a brief tornado was reported. It’s barely visible in the photo below, but you can just make it out on the right part of the storm.

At first I didn’t even think that I saw a tornado, but I consulted with a National Weather Service Meteorologist, Mike Umsheid, who was on scene, a well as other chasers and all seem to agree. It was not a very photogenic tornado unless you were up close and personal to it. The photo above is a bit mushy, but it’s the only picture I managed to get in that time frame and it was with my phone. By the time I busted out the big guy (camera), the tornado had lifted and/or became rain-wrapped.

I stayed with the storm until the Howardwick area, but the once mature supercell was becoming more grungy-looking. The road I was on suddenly turned to dirt as well and it was probably for the better. This route was going to cross paths with a rain-wrapped circulation, so I bailed back south to avoid a potential disaster. Another backstory is that all of the recent rain over the past few weeks has done a number on the Plains. Dirt roads that may have been questionable before are now a thing to avoid at all costs, unless you want to get stranded in mud.

Anyway, the chase wasn’t over yet after shifting south. A broken line of storms was forming and heading for Oklahoma, so next, I went east. By the time I made it to far southwestern Oklahoma, around sunset, a couple of tornado warnings were issued for the new line of storms. I inched closer, but in the end, it was too dark and not safe enough to justify chasing any longer.

Aside from storms initiating rather early in the afternoon, opposed to the mid to late afternoon signal from most computer models, the day went as expected. Most model guidance showed a fairly brief window of discrete storms and there was strong model agreement among the convection allowing models that storms would merge and cluster fairly quickly. Just because there is a high likelihood of tornadoes does not mean that all or even most of the tornadoes will be easily visible.

Due to logistical reasons, I did not jump on a potential chase target in southwest Texas. As often is the case in setups across the southern High Plains, a lone supercell developed down near I-10. It was not a realistic target due to time constraints this go-around, but in the future, it is a chase play I would like to give a shot. Chaser convergence and traffic issues were very challenging yesterday and it’s safe to say that most chasers will not choose a conditional supercell target near I-10, when there is a moderate risk issued up around I-40.

Still, even though I barely caught a tornado an spent most of the chase fighting with a lack of cell service/radar data around the canyons, I’d consider it another successful chase. The supercell by Tulia was very photogenic, especially early in its life cycle.

Below is a condensed video, at 8x speed. Most of it is near Tulia, but the short segment at the end is a little bit northeast of Tulia, later in the life cycle of the supercell: