Start, Plainview, TX; end, Ozona, TX; 350 miles; lunch at Midland (Johnnys BBQ)
We had to get down south from the TX PH to at least U.S. 67, where storms were expected to develop along a boundary. Shear and instability were again looking nice, but moisture a little too meager at low levels to provide a good tornado chance. After lunch in cool and overcast Midland, we continued due south and timed it just right — a strong storm tower was organizing to our southwest (northwest of Rankin, the county seat of beautiful Upton County). The cool boundary that was nearby was sagging south and would undercut any cells which weren’t diving south or southeast fast enough. We came up on the east side of the “Rankin” supercell, which afforded a great view of the storm structure. Some menacing lowerings nearly scraped the ground, but organized rotation at low levels was not evident. The supercell tracked to the SE or ESE and became more outflowish, unfortunately. By the time we got to Big Lake and Barnhart, there were a handful of messy cells, and we were battling heavy rain and some hail. At Ozona, along I-10, we called it a chase.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.