Chase Three: Another Just Miss

On a very windy afternoon with lots of dust thrown into the air, storms began to form after seemingly much difficulty about 10 miles ESE of Plains, Texas, where my chase began. At about 5:30 pm, when things were just starting, I hooked up with a nice couple from California, Bill and France, through my nowcaster for the day, Bob Schaefer. We watched these storms develop but didn't see much in the way of rotational signatures.

Meanwhile, the real meat got out ahead of us. We hauled ass after it and ended up at a roadblock about 5 miles south of Olton, TX. This was the path of the Olton tornado where it crossed 168. Powerlines were on the road, hence the roadblock. The photograph above shows an updraft following that tornadic cell. It seemed to show some signs of mesoscale rotation. Soon it was dark and so we headed to Plainsview to wait out an approaching squall line behind the line of supercells we were chasing. The squall lifted over Plainsview with little impact, so I said good bye to Bill and France and headed the 343 miles back home for a total chase mileage of 782 miles.

It's On Like King Kong

There's a great storm window opening up on Saturday in west Texas. Pro-chaser Tony Laubach is saying Dalhart in the northwest corner of the Texas Panhandle might be a good place to start.

I am officially a ham radio operator now, call sign: KE5NUV. Hopefully my rig will arrive today so I can install it before I head over to Los Alamos-based chaser Bob Schafer's house to view his videos and absorb his wisdom before I head out this weekend.

Update: Saturday is really starting to shape up: