Chases » Sunsets and Storms

June 1, 2010 Palo Duro, TX Lightning

Bill — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 07:15:24 +0000

I played with some weak storms in the TX Panhandle this evening, as I need to be back in OKC tomorrow. We reached the edge of Palo Duro Canyon south of Claude right before sunset, and were treated to a great sunset, with occasional lightning bolts, too!

May 20, 2010 Hill County, TX marginal severe

Bill — Thu, 20 May 2010 08:00:55 +0000

On this, the final full chase day for Tour 3, we had a chance for severe weather down in the DFW region, along a boundary that was drifting slowly south. Instability was excellent and shear was so-so. We got stuck in heavy traffic just north of Fort Worth on I-35W, while healthy CBs grew rapidly to our south around Hillsboro. The storms moved east along the boundary and were unable to sustain impressive low-level organization. New storm towers erupted along the west end of the boundary in the vicinity of Hillsboro, and provided some momentary interest. On occasion there would be a wall cloud and some intense CG activity, but soon the updraft would find itself floundering above the cool side of the boundary. We sampled a handful of cells in and around Penelope and Mount Calm. Prior to sunset we gave up, as it was time to head back north towards OKC. After supper in Malone, we observed a pretty and isolated storm tower to the west of town, glowing orange in the fading light of dusk.

May 17, 2010 Artesia, NM severe storms

Bill — Mon, 17 May 2010 08:00:36 +0000

This day began in Odessa, TX, and we motored northwest into NM for some fun. Near Artesia we watched a couple of strong storm towers go up, one of which sported an impressive rotating base. These sputtered some, and we were lured east on U.S. 82 towards new strong storms which were moving north towards the highway. These storms looked organized and fierce for a little bit, and would then weaken as there was just too much other nearby interfering convection. From Lovington we headed north to Tatum and beyond, in position for one more cell which looked supercellular with a good wall cloud for a few minutes. It spit out a bunch of CGs and died pretty quickly, leaving us with our thoughts and a rainbow.

May 15 and 16, 2010 Marathon, TX convection

Bill — Sun, 16 May 2010 08:00:43 +0000

On both the 15th and 16th we were in Fort Stockton for lunch, and from there we headed southwest towards Alpine on U.S. 67. We wound up with marginally strong cells in the vicinity of Marathon, and I have little in the way of interesting photographs to share. On the 16th we abandoned a dud storm between Marathon and Fort Stockton, and raced northward to catch a small supercell that was north of Andrews. As we neared, it sputtered, and I was unable to catch any of the impressive (but extremely infrequent) lightning flashes that it emitted at dusk. All of these images are from the 16th.

May 14, 2010 Permian Basin TX supercells and lightning

Bill — Fri, 14 May 2010 08:00:41 +0000

Today we woke up pretty much where we needed to be — in Midland, TX. A boundary was oriented WSW-ENE a little north of I-20 from Monahans to Midland. With plenty of sun, instability and moisture, it appeared that tornadic supercells might develop near the front during the afternoon. Our group headed from Midland to Monahans for lunch, and shortly after noon there was already some deep moist convection in the vicinity. My stomach overruled my eyes, and I elected to head to a BBQ place in Monahans, even as an impressive storm tower was not too far northeast of town. The BBQ lunch went quickly, fortunately, but when we got back on the road it turned out that the updraft that we had stopped briefly to look at just prior to lunch had dropped a couple of tornadoes! That is just not right.

Several storms trekked northeastward across the boundary during the afternoon, and we went back and forth across the boundary between Monahans, Penwell and Goldsmith several times. The storms featured low bases and wall clouds near and north of the boundary, but little else of note. By 3 or 4 p.m. the boundary was moving south and undercutting the storms with rain-cooled air. The first image below is of the CB near Monahans just before lunch. The next three are of a supercell base south Penwell, prior to the cold air undercutting it.

Once the boundary and the cold north winds began to sag south of I-20, the chance of a tornado near the boundary diminished considerably. We targeted a cell or two near Crane, and these were undercut. We continued south to another storm near McCamey, far enough from the dreaded boundary for some fun with lightning near sunset. These images are looking mostly west, between McCamey and Rankin on U.S. 67, I think!

The cloud-to-ground lightning was so frequent in the storm to our west that I was able to catch many bolts despite the relatively bright conditions around sunset time. For instance, image 1580 above was just 1/6 second in exposure time. The F4 aperture setting wound up being a little too wide. I likely clicked the shutter just after seeing the first flash of lightning. Image 1598 was a two-second exposure at F11. The storm was quite close at this point and we got the heck out of there in short order after this bolt!

I called for rooms in Ozona, and the occasionally severe storms followed us from Iraan to Ozona. We stopped near Ozona before checking into the motel for some more great lightning photography.