May 10, 2012 Chase Update

A quick update from Hebbronville, TX, late this Thursday evening…

Tempest Tours Tour 2B began out of Oklahoma City on Sunday, May 5.  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.  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.  It looked like Custer County would be a good area to target — not too far to our WNW.  Some towers went up in that area, and then fizzled.  Chase over — we got rooms in Cozad and watched strong elevated cells go up to our NW and N.

My birthday, May 6, was another non-tornado birthday for me.  I am still waiting for my first b-day tornado.  We blew off the severe chance near E KS/W MO for better chances in central or western TX the following day.  So, we drove from I-80 to I-20 — over 600 miles, to position ourselves.  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.  We stayed in Sweetwater.

May 7 was looking quite volatile, but was overall a lot of driving and dissapointment.  We got to San Angelo in time for lunch and, unfortunately, very early convection.  Some severe stuff teased us near Knickerbocker, but there was too much too early and it was, unsurprisingly, messy and ugly.  We then blasted west for a long-lived cell approaching Mentone.  We killed it upon arrival.  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.  It approached Seminole, and we got south of it via Andrews.  It had impressive structure and occasional lightning.  This was around 9:30 p.m., with little or no light remaining.  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.  We got back late to Fort Stockton, with a nice CG show to our west between Kermit and Fort Stockton.  Another loud t-storm came through town around 3 a.m.

The cold front swept through most of Texas and there was cool and moist upslope flow over W TX on the 8th and 9th.  Severe chances were slim, though, so we focused more on scenery around Big Bend.  On the 8th we headed south to Presidio via Alpine, then went along the Rio Grande on 170 to Terlingua.  That is a great stretch of pretty scenery.  A strong storm passed NW of Presidio, but wasn’t worth bothering with.  During dinner at the Starlight Theatre in Terlingua, an impressive cell put on a lightning display up near Marathon.  On the 9th, the weather was overcast and very pleasant for the drive through Big Bend National Park.  Again, there was a slim chance of a decent storm in the region, but none occurred near us.  Our motel stop was Del Rio, via Marathon.

Today, May 10, featured good severe weather ingredients for south TX, and maybe not too far from Del Rio.  Supercells and tornadoes were predicted by SPC.  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.  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.  One big one approached us as we waited ten miles southwest of Encinal.  A left split slammed into it, but this caused little more than a hiccup and the beast reorganized quickly.  As it approached our location, it featured a large area of lowerings and some good low-level structure.  It was a bit outflowish and HP-ish, though, and it chased us farther south as it turned ESE.  We raced south to Laredo and ENE on 59 to intercept it again, but it was even more outflowish and disorganized.  Occasional inch-diameter hail and heavy rain accompanied us on the way to a flooded Freer, TX.  I reserved rooms in Hebbronville, 40 miles to the south.  Nice lightning crawlers and this update summary are causing me to stay up too late!

Images will come later, as usual!