Background:

After a busy night before, I was up at 6 am CDT (../../yes%20I%20only%20got%204%20hours%20of%20sleep.jpg) and started running the models. I figured all the storms would fire along the dryline near Lubbock but the models had indicated that the dryline was not moving as fast as originally thought. I decided that I had to get west of Lubbock. A quick look at the radar indicates that some thunderstorms had developed between Lubbock and Childress. After last night and talking with David Drummond, I really needed to get a detailed map of Texas and a tripod (I thought I forgot my tripod in the rush to leave but found out when I got home it was buried under the back seat so now I have 2).

After a run to the Wal-Mart in Childress (there seems to be a Wal-Mart in every town), I got a quick fast-food breakfast and decided I had some hours to kill so I took off to watch the thunderstorms and enjoy the plains. Around 10 am, I gave Dave a call (and think I woke him up). Told him the situation and that I was almost at Lubbock. He said he was going to do a analysis and get back to me on his target. About an hour later he called and said he was heading my way. I told him I was going to catch a quick lunch and fill up in Lubbock and then give a call and see where he was. He told me he was concerned about the low level clouds and I assured him that the clouds were gone and things were really heating up with a nice SE wind. Things were coming together.

We finally hooked up in Littlefield and another chase group from LA saw us and we chatted on targets. As storms had gone up near Dimmit and I had a spent the last hour waiting for Dave and checking out the area and atmosphere, I was not heading north. I figured west was still the way to go and we headed off on the chase as the other group wanted to go north.

Chase:

Our first storm was not the prettiest. Things were still getting there act together  and the heating of the day had not fully come into play. The winds were starting to increase from the SE so it was coming along. The storm produced a nice wall cloud but we could not see any rotation in it from our vantage point. I did take some video of this but I did not like the exposure to it but got one shot from it.

There was 2 interesting things we noticed; the storms were only moving around 10 mph to the NNE which is a chasers dream and the southern storm was getting it's act together. We noticed that the scud from the first cell was being ripped by the SW cell and we decided that this was the cell we wanted. We broke the chase and headed for the next cell and I am glad we did.

We were the only chasers here near Morton, TX. It was a great feeling to be sitting there and watching this storm develop.

Now it wall cloud begins to rotate but this was something I had never seen before. It was rotation on a vertical and horizontal direction at the same time. Photo 2 shows the wall cloud forming and weak rotation. The video is quite amazing as things begin to rotate through the cycle. The captures do not do it justice but  you can see the different levels of rotation. We really thought this was going to drop a large tornado. The core of this storm was a teal green. Reports of baseball size hail were coming in and we were not even going to play around this storm. I have to say that Photo #7 is one of the best shots I took this year and will be getting that one blown up.

As the RFD continues to cut around the wall cloud, still visible to the rear, a new wall cloud is developing in the foreground. In fact, in the third and fourth picture, you can just make out a funnel shape that was rotating rapidly on a vertical axis Just ahead of the core. The storm had become a cyclical supercell thunderstorm. These are storms you only read about and never think you will ever see as a chaser. Truly a stellar day and things had not even begun. There was so much shear or vortices that we were seeing funnels pop up all over the place at all levels. Could not get enough video of all of them as I was concentrating on the structure of this storm. I have to say I was in total awe. We were in a very safe place and the storms were moving so slow that we could actually enjoy the moment and view everything.

  NEW!

NEW!

Now we see the third wall cloud form. At one point there was 3 visible wall clouds with this storm. Amazing. Again this wall cloud looked like it was going to drop a tornado but it was teasing us. At one point we thought it was touching down in the 3rd photo (stills show it better but I have not scanned them yet) but we were not going to take the chance and head any closer. In the last shot of this series, a another stronger funnel formed just to the right of the white post. We did not know if it touched down due to visibility but we measure winds of 63.3 mph (105 kph) at this time. Just look at the saucer shape. This storm was really rotating. But look at the shelf cloud in photo #5.

After watching this wall cloud rotate around, another wall cloud formed. We were watching this when we noticed a nice plume of dust.

At first we were sure it was RFD outflow but both myself and Gayla zoomed in and noticed rotation in this and it was just above the wall cloud (we were about 2 miles from it so we could have been an illusion but we talked it over and figure that it was due to the evident rotation seen. Not the greatest tornado but we had seen so much.

At this time, we noticed the cell was becoming outflow dominate. I was getting weaker and we had word that there was another storm to our south that was rapidly developing. So we decided to head off to the south and aim for Brownfield. We ran into a Channel 11 tv chase team from Lubbock and chatted for a bit before we left.

We stopped in Sundown, TX for a quick snack and drink. I ad to get some batteries as I thought my mobile cb was dead. To intercept the storm we wanted, which was now in the NE part of Terry County, we were going to have to go between it and a new cell just forming in the SW part of Terry County. We pulled over and examined both cells and took a poll. I was very comfortable in plotting a track between the 2 cells. Another chaser that hooked up with us was hesitate and decided not to (he regretted this as he got caught in the hail core and did some serious damage to his vehicle).

There must have been less than a mile of clearing between the 2 storms and we navigated it perfectly and safely. We got on the south side and noticed the cell we wanted had eaten the storm to the SW so we were on a good cell and decided to stick with it.

As we got into position just after sunset, we are just to the NE of Brownfield. In the first picture, you can see a well defined lowering with a "funnel finger" sticking out of the left portion of the storm. Going across the lowering was rotating rapidly and in the last picture on the right it actually brought up a little "mud debris". You can see it underneath the middle of the tornado. This shot was taken with nightshot as it was getting very dark. We could see it with the naked eye but had a ton of trouble getting a decent shot of it.

This storm went on to drop tennis ball sized hail on the community of Meadow, TX along HWY 62/82 just north of Brownfield. We were getting reports over the scanner including police saying that they were in some trouble and getting out of there. We had a state trooper following us for the next hour as I think he figured he had no idea what was going on and we did (which we did).

 Also, there were many county roads flooded! The first shot was Dave going slow across the flooded road. We had seen many people cross the paved road so we knew it was intact but we were still hesitate. Actually, the water was waving across the road and we could see it. Reminded me of the beach. The second shot was very interesting. This is actually a field under water. It looks like an entire lake with us driving right between it. In areas, Dave told me at least 10 feet of water was near us.

We stayed behind the storm until we could get into Lubbock. We did see a fairly new Lincoln Continental that was beat to heck. No glass left in it, large dents and few lights left intact, that was trying to limp into Lubbock! This was the best storm chase I have ever done. Chasing with David and Gayla Drummond and Chris Bradley was a treat. We really had a good time today.

We headed back to Lubbock and Dave invited me to his house for a drink and to chat about the day. We fired up the computer and, low and behold, the storm had 2 areas of rotation that had developed. We spent about 5 mins debating whether to chase it or not when we said it had been a very good day and we were all pretty tired. I got a room in town and said my good nights. Tomorrow was another day but we were not sure if we wanted to chase yet (I was very burnt out as I had driven close to 3500 kms in 3 days now and need some sleep.

All Photos and information unless otherwise noted are copyrighted 2001 by Dave Patrick.  Any use other than authorized by me is against the law.  If you wish to contact me regarding use of these photos, please e-mail me. Images unaltered digitally (except where stated)