May 1, 2013 Albany, TX supercell and spider lightning

(posted on May 15, 2013)

This was the first chase day for Tour 2, out of OKC.  There was a risk for severe in northwest TX, so we hurried southwest to the Haskell area, and wound up on some ho-hum convection stretching SW-NE near Seymour, TX.  The southern end of this activity began to organize some and headed south, through Throckmorton, towards Albany.  It was high-based and outflowish, but looking good in the sunset light.  Someone turned a switch on when we got to Albany —- the storm went supercellular and caused 70 mph-plus rain-filled winds through the east side of town, with local roof damage.  One of our vans was in nature’s free car wash.  My van was on the west side of Albany, where we had a few close lightning strikes and rain but little wind.  We found a high spot, looked up, and observed an absolutely wild and crazy lightning display in the cloud updraft region.  A field of mammatus clouds was lit up to our west.  Unreal.