Best Of - 2009

The past few days have been a very welcome relief from the stifling heat wave. NW flow aloft has dominated the weather pattern for the Panhandles region which for this time of year is a great setup for convection. We've had some pretty impressive non-tornadic supercells too producing some large hail and damaging winds. One reason they have not been tornadic is the storm motions are generally southward with low level inflow from the E or SE. The bulk of a storm's inflow source is it's own precip-cooled air. We need S or even SW inflow into these storms to increase the tornadic potential. Additionally, lower dewpoint spreads would help too. As has been the case for 2009, surface dewpoints here on the high plains have been pretty meager.

As I sit around waiting for a sign on satellite to trek towards Dalhart today in anticipation of more chasing, I thought I'd put together my best pics of a meager and frustrating season. It didn't help to have a good part of May end up with an upper air pattern you'd expect to see in August.

So, I start off with a pic I took on May 3 at Wildcat Bluff Nature Center near Amarillo which surely was an omen for May's chase potential:



2009 started off pretty quirky for the Panhandles. After a near-record for lack of snowfall for the winter, we make up for it with a blizzard on March 27-28th. Up to 13 inches fell across the region with strong winds up to 40mph.








True to the spirit of the Panhandle, one week later on April 4th, we were experiencing major wildfires. I "chased" the big wildfire in Wheeler county.






On April, 16th, a very intense hailstorm occurred around Tulia, Texas with one of the most impressive hail dumps I've seen.






On April 26, I chased the high risk in western Oklahoma and bailed on the storm that would produce some nice tornadoes that many other chasers saw. I mean, it's a high risk, right? ;-) I opted for newer development in SW OK which was a major disappointment. Later on, I surveyed the damage from the earlier tornadoes and discovered the remnants of a trailer home.



I would finally get an opportunity to intercept a major tornadic supercell on April 29th. I couldn't leave work early, so had to make some quick, rash intercept decision to try and get to the outflow boundary near Plainview, TX. As I tried to head south on 70 instead of I-27, big storms erupted slinging out baseballs and causing me some delay. This is one of them...an impressive left-splitter:


So, some bad intercept decisions kept me away from a very impressive tornado near Cedar Hill, east of Plainview. Thank goodness for telephoto lenses!! :-) Still, an impressive sight of a tornado up on top of the caprock.




Despite the anemic August-like upper air pattern, a combination of a sharp, stationary dryline and cool front sagging south into a pretty unstable atmosphere, some caprock magic unfolded and produced a real beast of an HP tornadic supercell around Pampa and Miami. Again, work delayed me from reaching the storm in time to see the visible tornadoes, but I still got to witness some jaw-dropping merry-go-round structure of this beast. I'll have some better HDR images of it soon online.



On June 2, I grabbed a good image of a very intense core dump and associated rain foot south of Pampa.



My best lighting photo opportunity to date materialized on June 5 across the eastern Texas Panhandle from around Panhandle to Pampa. Check out these stunning images of a most surreal environment. I've never seen so many storms this intensely electrified!











Then one day as I was driving around on June 7, I saw the most bizarre contrail I've ever seen. The sun was setting just right for maximum effect.



Another potentially big chase day on June 13 resulted in some great storm structure...but no tornadoes...again...despite several tornado warnings. This storm was near Plainview.





A couple of days later on June 15th, yet another potential tornado day went pfffft, but yielded some beautiful structure and stunning sunset in the NE Texas Panhandle. Some HDR photos are coming of this too.









Lastly on June 27, a severe thunderstorm erupted over Amarillo and dumped up to 3 inches of rain in about an hour. Being that it is pretty flat, drainage is a major engineering challenge. The first pic is of the storm over Tanglewood developing towards Amarillo with an impressive rain/dust foot. If I ever get time, I'll edit some video of this event and post it.





Some other great images may still come in 2009, especially this fall, but they are usually rare. I'll post any that I catch though. Just like the past few days, anything can happen in the Panhandle. It's why I love living here. :-)