Big Tex, Few Results.

This morning we left Wichita and headed southwest. A row of morning storms greeted us, which played a big role in the day's events. The morning line of storms lined up along I-35 and slowed us down as we went south. As the storms continued to grow and backbuild to the west, we decided to go father west to escape the heavy rain.

This first line of storms would set up an outflow boundary, similar to a ripple moving through a pond. The main ripple, when it hit the hot capped air east of the Lubbock, created a high precipitation supercell. There was also a dryline sitting to the west that could initiate storm formation, but it never exerted itself. As a result, this first cell became the focus. It was a large cell, but with few good roads in the area and a lot of rain and hail, it was difficult to the approach the storm.

In the small town of Crowell, we stopped and looked at our options. There was almost no cell phone reception or data available. There was a new cell developing near Amarillo. It's top surged to 55,000 feet and looked promising, but it was 2 hours away and moving north, which was odd. We debated our options and then decided to chase the storm complex to our south, even if it was moving out of the area most favorable for development. It was a good decision as the Amarillo storm dissipated.


The storm was large. It was the size of an entire county. The storm did put down a couple of short lived tornadoes, but we were not in a position to see them. There was a lot of hail, but not near us. Soon other cells formed as well, but they grew and died quickly as well. By the time we finally worked out way around the storm, we had made it down to I-20, threading the needed between the two largest cells. Unfortunately, it was getting dark and the storms were outflow dominant with lots of wind. We decided to bed down in Abilene, TX.

This long chase, which included about 570 miles and 10 hours of driving, provided only limited storm viewing. Just as frustrating is the fact that tomorrow's best chance for action is about 600 miles to the north, around the area where NE, CO, and KS come together.