Chase-O-Rama Day 6 Report!

(silly frame grab thanks to Steve Douglass)Did I ever mention how much I love living here? :-) I shudder at the thought of being stuck in North Central Texas area watching the daily festivities in the Panhandle....well out of reach. I endured that for far too many years. :-) I've chased every day for the past 6 days and loved every minute of it. You might say I've had 6 seasons of chasing in just one week (inside joke). ;-)

A quick forecast for today first. I don't have a clue. LOL! Surface winds are still chaotic and dewpoints already cratering in the PH. RUC forecast of 40's in the NW PH don't appear in error. Since storms will be moving down from the Rotan Mesa and E CO, they will be moving into drier air. With forecast weak low level flow, I'm just not very excited about today's prospects. However, this may translate into some lighting photography opportunties this evening. As it stands, I'm expecting to go home and chill out. I need it. ;-)

Now for yesterday's report. Pics are further below if you want to skip my long-windedness. :-)

Once again, another wild day unfolded around my stomping grounds and this time right in my backyard. I watched a pronounced outflow boundary moving westward towards Amarillo and even slowed abit upon getting here. An explosive supercell erupted just north of here and I knew it was going to be a wild show as it moved south along the boundary. Sure enough, it did. 80mph winds and higher gusts slammed the eastern fringes of town and around the airport. Significant damage has been reported, but indications are it's straight-line winds even though a tornado warning was issued.

I was standing out in the parking lot of where I work watching it roll in. It was quite a spectacle with one of the greenest cores on a storm I've seen. This was punctuated by shades of blue and purple with lower white clouds along the gust front exhibiting all sorts of wild motions. Then, the tornado sirens went off and chaos ensued here at work. I took advantage of that and slipped out to go chase it.

This storm was strongly outflow dominant with pretty cold and stout winds rushing out ahead of it. I wanted to get closer to the earlier outflow boundary as the storm interacted with it. But, because it was about to move over the roadless Palo Duro Canyon, I had to get south of the park itself in order to get into position. Despite my best efforts, I just couldn't get close enough to that outflow boundary interaction area. It was very interesting though from a distance as you could tell there was some action going on there, but nothing I saw hinted at any potential tornado activity. The rotation on radar though was pretty intense, so who knows?

After turning south out of Quitaque, I started seeing another storm popping up further WNW of the main action. I saw a surface ob someplace with strong easterly flow feeding into this thing. I thought that the massive, cold outflow from the earlier storms would kill it. But, it continued to improve on radar. I've seen this same thing before go on to produce a tornado, so off I went back west through Plainview.

As I got NW of Plainview near Edmonson, the radar presentation continued to improve and at least at a distance, I thought for a brief moment I saw a funnel dangling under the updraft base. Too many trees around the NW side of Plainview...dang it. In any event, the mammatus from this storm was very cool and pronounced. That and the updraft region structure along with radar presentation and the strong easterly winds feeding into it got my attention.

The storm would end up really developing a serious hook on it and with that, a beautiful bell-shaped wall cloud approaching Edmonson. I watched the entire transformation which was quite a treat. It never rotated much at all, but the upward velocities on the north side of it were pretty strong. But, the easterly winds flowing into it increased to 50-60mph, so I continued to think that there was still a threat of a tornado developing.

The storm continued moving towards me and while I was watching it, a gentleman comes up to me offering to sell me some Kestral weather gadgets. LOL!! I really admire such an entrepreneurial spirit! He handed my a brochure which was full of tactical weapon supplies...mainly for snipers...hence the wind measuring devices. I thought it was kind of cool really because in all the combat games I play, I spend alot of time playing a sniper kit.

Anyway, the storm continued churning SSE and the original wall cloud faded away. Interestingly, a sizable grass fire was started by a CG stroke and really lit up the horizon. I watched the smoke first flow into the storm and then switch direction as the gust front passed. Just as it really started blazing, the storm drenched and extinguished it. All of the smoke though getting sucked up into the newly developing updraft base was cool though.

I got to Hale Center and sought refuge under an overpass to await the hail (should be Hail Center...lol). But, the storm was weaking pretty quickly and pennies to nickles was about it. I then trekked home back to Amarillo treated to a nice sunset along the way and some new, smaller storms that popped up. Overall, another pretty good chase in the Panhandle! :-)

Pics!!

The monster as it was moving into the road void of Palo Duro Canyon State Park.



Dig that green core!



Awesome mammatus from the storm east of Dimmit around Hart and Nazareth.



Nice wall cloud evolving near Hart and moving towards Edmonson in the foreground.



Stormwood indeed.



Awesome wall cloud!! Commence stormgasm! :-) it never really rotated much, but was very cool indeed. LOTS of strong upward velocities on the north side (looking WNW). Inflow winds were very stout from the east at 50-60mph...albeit on the chilly side.



I like this shot depicting the awesome radar image and what was in the notch. :-) My position on the radar image is the blurry white circle to the ESE of it.



Another shelf/wall cloud developing on the southern edge of the cell.



The first wall cloud as it enlongates.



A grass fire ignited earlier by a CG stroke.



Nice shelf cloud near Hale Center.



Parting sunset shot as I head back to Amarillo.



I actually took this on Wednesday up NW of Amarillo on the Tascosa Highway. Now, what's funny about this sign is that the road itself is actually a nice, smooth paved road for nearly a mile before it really becomes muddy. :-)


I also want to congratulate and offer some kudos to my bud David Drummond for grabbing some stunning lightning pics yesterday around Lubbock. These are his first real good ones with his new camera he got this year. So, go check them out now and drool like I did. In fact, I'm jealous...that amber-lightbar yahoo. LOL!!