It is funny how small things during the day can reflect how the day is going to turn out. The joke on Mark's Truck with all the gadgets remind me of one of the beginning scenes in Twister where all the vehicles are together and you see Dusty's Barn Burner chase truck. Reminded me of Mark's totally. The next weird thing was that as we were driving south into Texas, we see a crop duster doing the fields and buzzing right over us. Another scene out of twister and maybe signs of what is to come?

We continued south into Texas and I gave a quick shout to Ron Gravelle in Kitchener, Ontario. His target and mine matched almost identically and said that would be the best place in his opinion. Mine too. I radioed the group and at the next pit stop we got the XM satellite up (a wicked real-time satellite feed for radar and locations of storms). Dave L. radioed that a single storm was already starting close to the target area which is not a great sign but he said they were moving very slow which was a good thing. We ate up the miles and the towns in a blur. We forgot to have breakfast, lunch was gone and dinner was slowly coming up and we didn't even realize it.

We came into the town of Quitaque from Turkey (The map is a little off) to get gas and a snack and in pulled a decked out chase truck. It was Tim Samaras (the guy who has been profiled in National Geographic many times for putting cameras and instruments into tornadoes). I said a quick hi (one of those things you can say you met one of the best chasers in the world) and he said to stay safe today.

We continued on our way with me and Kristy a little more satisfied with an Allsups corn dog and an ice tea in our stomachs and the truck gassed up and windows clean. We headed towards South Plains (#7) and encountered the first storm. It produced a beautiful wall cloud and a series of brief tornadoes (basically weak spin-ups)

After this wallcloud cycled and was weakening, an weird feature formed when the outflow and inflow intersected. It looked like a huge curtain but at the sharp point of the cloud the vertical motion into the storm was huge. We could not see any rotation with it but it sure did looked like a tornado (consensus was that it was not so we did not count it)

A new wall cloud seemed to be forming to the southwest and we made a decision to target that area and not continue with the first one. The storm was backbuilding and looking monstrous on radar. Indicies were that baseball to softball hail was in the core and we did not want to enter that.

About 20 mins later, the new wall cloud formed very quickly and we pulled over to film a snaky funnel form and touch down. This tornado quickly increased in size and shape to the point it was huge and very close. At times we were about 1/4 mile from it. Me an Kristy were watching it intently and trying to film and enjoy it at the same time.

A complete edited video of the first tornado is here. Warning 54 megs

Towards the middle stage of the tornado, Kristy and I both noticed that the cell was turning and we decided to turn around and head north to a safer distance on 207. We radioed our chase group we were turning around and heading north a little (they never got the message from what they told me). The tornado was enormous and black. The inflow winds were solid at 65 mph (110kph) with high gusts as this black tornado beat a path across 207. We pulled around and kept filming as it crossed the highway and caught it as it began to dissipate. The entire tornado lasted about 12 mins but it seemed like 2 hours. As the tornado dissipated, some large hail started to fall. We had tried to call the group to inform them we were okay and that they were okay but no answer. The tornado was rated a strong F2.

I decided to head south again and get into some clearer air and did not see them anywhere. With all the power and electricity in the storm, radio communications were not working. Things were starting to get a little hairy as I wondered if they were ok or not. At this time, I noticed George Kourounis of Ontario and Cloud 9 Tours just behind us. I got into contact with him on the radio and began to follow behind them heading east on the next paved road (CR-60) as they had XM as well and could keep us informed on the storm track. This was a bonus and something I have to look into buying now.

This decision/luck to stay east ahead of the hail core was the best option at the time and did save us a ton of damage that our chase group got hit with. They opted to try and sneak behind the first tornado as it crossed 207 to the south of  CR-60 but the tornado had destroyed a bunch of power lines and polls and the road was blocked. They had to wait it out there as baseball to softball hail hit them. Better to damage the car than hurt yourself. There websites have tons of video and pics of the tornado and damage to their vehicles.

Scott McPartland  Dave Lewison  Chris Kridler

As I said we had lost the group and decided to head east. The tornado had taken a weird path on a SE track during its lifecycle even though the storm was tracking to the NE. As we mentioned that it looked like the tornado had shifted paths, heading east may not have been the best choice afterwards.

About 2 miles to the east, another tornado began to form. This was a huge 1/2 mile wide multiple-vortex tornado that was slowly spinning in the field. We filmed the storm as we were driving east to the point it was between 1/4 to 1/8 of a mile away. This was close and intense. You could feel the raw power of mother nature and I was beginning to feel uneasy. As I was taking my fiancée Kristy with me, I am always concerned with her safety more-so than mine. This has been my passion for the past 12 years and I accept the risks and try to minimize them. With her, I tend to pull back from getting to close and take the safer route to be on the safe side. The tornado continued to spins and shift in the field for about 2 mins when a huge clunk (more like a bang or a thud as Kristy calls it) hit the truck. This followed by a crash and a bam. More bangs and big shatter hole materialize on my windshield. Then another.

A complete edited video of the first tornado is here. Warning 42 megs

Then, suddenly, you could see the tornado start to shift to the NE now. The track we thought it should have taken. We tried to race east ahead of it and the hail before it crossed the road but 5 seconds of that and we knew that was not going to make it before the tornado. We pulled over, looked at the storm for a min and said that was it. George radioed "Turn around now" and we all did. The baseball to softball hail turned to golf balls and quarters and as quickly as that we were out of the rain and hail and sunshine greeted us.

A sigh of relief hit me. That was a little too close for my comfort. I did not freak out or regret it but it was pretty intense and to quote Scott M "It got a little retarded". We were never in too much trouble but I did learn that mother nature sure has a huge amount of resources to cause havoc. And man, that was some big hail. You can never imagine hail that big till you see it and touch it and fell it shaking your truck as it impacts. This second tornado was rated F0 as it was weaker but it was huge.

We headed back to 207 and south a bit to the point where we could not go any further as the power lines were down. We all got out, shook hands and began to look at the damage to the cars and check out the hail. Stories were swapped and injuries tended too ( one tour participate had a nasty bruise from a huge piece of hail that broke threw the window and hitting him but he had a happy face on him ). I went into the field to see how the hail had pockmarked the dirt and spotted a baby bunny shivering in the grass. He had survived the hail and tornado like we did. I tired to pick him up and dry him off (it was very cold now as the hail was changing the air from 90F to about 60) but he hopped away. He may have been smarter than many of us that day.

Kristy and Me Holding Hail

George Checking out the Damage

At this point, radio communications were not working and no ones cell was either. Surprisingly mine was getting some signal so I called my chase group. No answer. I called Mark Robinson and got through. He said that the others were okay and were trying to track me down as they had no clue where I was. I finally got threw to them and we decided to meet in Floydada to the south. They said the power polls were out of the way enough to sneak through. I contacted Ron Gravelle at this point and he congratulated me on the chase and then warned me that another cell was going up about 60 miles to our southwest and we should head out of there as it was looking like it could get nasty soon. And that is what we did.

Damage was light

We headed to Floydada and met up with our chase group to see that they got hit with some serious damage. More so than ours. We got off extremely lucky in this case.

We were all parked under a huge metal awning and thought we might film the new storm dropping huge hail while we were under cover. Someone mentioned that anymore damage to our windshield and glass and we would not be able to drive or see. We decided to take off and head to Lubbock.

Along the way we saw these beautiful mammatus clouds. These were the best I have ever seen in all my chases. It also told me that the cell to our SW was way more intense that we thought.

Mammatus

We got to the main highway and headed south when we saw the huge storm as it came into view. We pulled over on the side of the highway and could see the cloud corkscrewing as they were building. This storm was an intense supercell and we had had enough and crossed the grass on the side and onto a byway road and headed back north.

This was a good decision as that rotation we saw sparked a tornado warning and a tornado touched down about 2 miles from where we turned around. You will never hear a storm chaser saying he has seen enough storms but after the past 3 hours, all we wanted to see was clear skies and a beer. We headed north to Amarillo for the night. Coming into town, I got pulled over for my headlight being out. I told the officer that the hail did it and we were trying to get to town so we could get our vehicles fixed. He gave me a warning and let us go. Not 4 miles later I was pulled over again but this officer was more interested in the tornado than my headlight (which was the reason we got pulled over again). I bet they were radioing ahead to others to pull us over to check out the damage. LOL.

We pulled into Amarillo and we looking for a room when I asked Kristy is she remember a herd of cows running in the field from the hail and the tornado. She looked at me and said yes but we could not remember where exactly it was. But that she hoped they were ok, and everyone else for that matter (no one was seriously injured).