May 10, 2013 Pearsall, TX, hailer

On Friday, May 10, we lunched in Rocksprings, headed south to Del Rio, and killed a storm that was immigrating into the U.S. near El Indio, TX. Another batch of convection lured us north towards Uvalde. We didn’t quite make it that far, as a severe cell emerged from the mess and surged southeastward with great alacrity, as my 5th grade teacher would say. This thing raised the dust skyward on its way to Pearsall, with our group barely out of its grasp. 8 p.m. rush-hour traffic in tiny Pearsall caused some delay, and large hail stones became part of the dusty mix. Fortunately we escaped to the southeast unscathed (baseball-sized hail was reported in town), but it was a frantic scene!  We topped off the evening shooting lightning in the retreating storm cell near Charlotte, had a Chilis dinner and got in to San Antonio at midnight. Another long chase day in the books…