A quick update from Hebbronville, TX, late this Thursday evening…<\/p>\n
Tempest Tours Tour 2B began out of Oklahoma City on Sunday, May 5.\u00a0 The weather pattern had been slow for the 3 or 4 free days I had between T1 and T2B, so I relaxed in OKC and caught up on some web site stuff and did not chase.\u00a0 There was a decent tornado risk in eastern NE on May 5, and we raced with the new group of guests up to York and I-80 from OKC during the afternoon.\u00a0 It looked like Custer County would be a good area to target — not too far to our WNW.\u00a0 Some towers went up in that area, and then fizzled.\u00a0 Chase over — we got rooms in Cozad and watched strong elevated cells go up to our NW and N.<\/p>\n
My birthday, May 6, was another non-tornado birthday for me.\u00a0 I am still waiting for my first b-day tornado.\u00a0 We blew off the severe chance near E KS\/W MO for better chances in central or western TX the following day.\u00a0 So, we drove from I-80 to I-20 — over 600 miles, to position ourselves.\u00a0 The highlight was keeping tabs on the Kings SWEEP of St. Louis, and a pretty t-storm during the evening near Aspermont, with frequent lightning in the back of the storm tower and a near-full moon rising above it.\u00a0 We stayed in Sweetwater.<\/p>\n
May 7 was looking quite volatile, but was overall a lot of driving and dissapointment.\u00a0 We got to San Angelo in time for lunch and, unfortunately, very early convection.\u00a0 Some severe stuff teased us near Knickerbocker, but there was too much too early and it was, unsurprisingly, messy and ugly.\u00a0 We then blasted west for a long-lived cell approaching Mentone.\u00a0 We killed it upon arrival.\u00a0 After a bite to eat in Kermit and reserving rooms in Fort Stockton, a supercell got strong and turned right\/southeast 50 miles to our north.\u00a0 It approached Seminole, and we got south of it via Andrews.\u00a0 It had impressive structure and occasional lightning.\u00a0 This was around 9:30 p.m., with little or no light remaining.\u00a0 After the core passed the N-S road, we moseyed on up to find a lot of small hail on the road, strong cold winds, and blowing hail fog not too far south of Seminole.\u00a0 We got back late to Fort Stockton, with a nice CG show to our west between Kermit and Fort Stockton.\u00a0 Another loud t-storm came through town around 3 a.m.<\/p>\n
The cold front swept through most of Texas and there was cool and moist upslope flow over W TX on the 8th and 9th.\u00a0 Severe chances were slim, though, so we focused more on scenery around Big Bend.\u00a0 On the 8th we headed south to Presidio via Alpine, then went along the Rio Grande on 170 to Terlingua.\u00a0 That is a great stretch of pretty scenery.\u00a0 A strong storm passed NW of Presidio, but wasn’t worth bothering with.\u00a0 During dinner at the Starlight Theatre in Terlingua, an impressive cell put on a lightning display up near Marathon.\u00a0 On the 9th, the weather was overcast and very pleasant for the drive through Big Bend National Park.\u00a0 Again, there was a slim chance of a decent storm in the region, but none occurred near us.\u00a0 Our motel stop was Del Rio, via Marathon.<\/p>\n
Today, May 10, featured good severe weather ingredients for south TX, and maybe not too far from Del Rio.\u00a0 Supercells and tornadoes were predicted by SPC.\u00a0 We hung around Del Rio into the early afternoon, then figured out that better convergence and low-level air was down south towards Dimmit County.\u00a0 Upon reaching Highway 44 (north of Laredo), we considered going after big cells which were getting tornado warned to the east, but elected to stick with Plan A — wait for supercells moving out of Mexico.\u00a0 One big one approached us as we waited ten miles southwest of Encinal.\u00a0 A left split slammed into it, but this caused little more than a hiccup and the beast reorganized quickly.\u00a0 As it approached our location, it featured a large area of lowerings and some good low-level structure.\u00a0 It was a bit outflowish and HP-ish, though, and it chased us farther south as it turned ESE.\u00a0 We raced south to Laredo and ENE on 59 to intercept it again, but it was even more outflowish and disorganized.\u00a0 Occasional inch-diameter hail and heavy rain accompanied us on the way to a flooded Freer, TX.\u00a0 I reserved rooms in Hebbronville, 40 miles to the south.\u00a0 Nice lightning crawlers and this update summary are causing me to stay up too late!<\/p>\n
Images will come later, as usual!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"