May 6, 2013 Portales, NM supercell

Our tour group spent four down days in the Big Bend region, and finally, by May 6, there was a chance for storms on the Plains again.  SPC was not impressed and did not indicate a severe chance, but low-to-mid-level winds looked pretty good in east-central NM.  A corridor of low-level moisture was pointed northwestward towards Clovis and Portales, and that was my general target area.  Dew points were only in the low 40s, so we were cautiously optimistic about getting on something interesting.

We got out of Van Horn late morning, and had lunch in Carlsbad.  We pushed north to Roswell and northeast on U.S. 70, and weak cells developed to our north and northeast.  Some of these became strong in the Tucumcari area, and it appeared that our group might miss out on the best storms of the day.  But, as we neared Elida, we observed an increasingly strengthening storm just to our north.  We got southeast of it, and viewed an impressively large storm base which was fed by strong and dusty southeast winds.  As the cell moved towards Portales, it began to turn sharply southeastward, and it was a huge dust-filled hailer!  We scrambled through some one-inch hail in Portales, and dashed south towards Lingo to get a better look.  The structure in the sunset light, with the strong winds sending plumes of dust into the base, was fantastic!   We were one of only a handful of folks chasing this surprise supercell on the perfect, flat, treeless, empty Plains near the NM/TX border — what a magical day!