Thursday started in Amarillo Texas with an IHOP for breakfast, which usually precedes interesting storm activity and today was certainly interesting!
Our target area is Brownfield TX. An easy drive from Amarillo.
On the drive down, we stopped for gas just north of Lubbock, and had an impromptu airshow with KC-135 tankers doing touch and go’s and an AC-130 gunship departing.
As we arrived in our target area 2 storms were visible on radar one to our North heading towards Lubbock and another to our West that was seemingly heading into better territory to chase in and good air.
We chose the storm to the West as our initial target knowing we could relocate to the Northern storm once it cleared Lubbock and if it still looked good on radar.
A true wall cloud didn’t develop but we did have a pretty brilliant lightning show
We decided to relocate to target the Northern storm and found ourselves in a race against time to get far enough East to get on the right side of it to view the area of interest.
As we drove east, the storm continued to move South and it was becoming a race against time to find a road that would take us South, out of the way of the oncoming storm and get us into a good position to view the area of interest for tornado potential.
Stormchasing is often a game of fine margins, we want to be close enough to see interesting structure and tornados, but far enough away to be safe. This means a mile or 2 of progress down a road can be the difference between getting to a good view and finding ourselves in the thick of the action. On Thursday, the unexpected wildcard was the dust being kicked up by a powerful rear flank downdraft. Had we been just a little further east we would have missed the worst of the winds and dust that made the following videos one of the more adrenaline inducing momments of my Stormchasing career.
When we found ourselves in this situation, the key to getting out safely was to be cautious and make data driven decisions. The temptation to turn around immediately is strong, but before you do, you need to be confident that the road behind isn’t worse than the road ahead.
The plan had been to reach Lamesa and drop South on highway 137. But it became very clear that wasn’t possible
We paused briefly to get our bearings on the storm, before making the decision to either proceed or turn around. The radar made it clear there was no tornado risk ahead or behind, but visually, we could see flashes from transformers being blown ahead, so regardless of tornado risk the safest way to proceed was to backtrack until the next opportunity to turn South.
We managed to find a fast South road and escaped this monster of a storm.
We tracked a bit East towards Big Spring TX to see if we could get one more chance at viewing the storm.
Unfortunately, the light was starting to fade, and a long line of storms had formed, so we decided to call it a day and escape along I20.
Overall it was a truly incredible day, and about as close to danger as I ever want to get!
Once again, I feel almost part of the group reading your blog. Photos superb, specially like the end of storm day sunset. It looks so moody!
You have had an exciting time! Rather sketchy, I think. You’ve had good storms so far this trip that you have been able to capture with excellent photos. Helps us couch observers get a little of the mood of being there.