Tour 3 began on May 10th in OKC, and we made a 7-hour drive south to find a severe storm. As it turned out, both the 10th and 11th were a bit disappointing. Here are the particulars:
May 10/start OKC/end Del Rio/687 miles
May 11/start Del Rio/lunch La Hacienda in Del Rio/end Laredo/238 miles
May 12/start Laredo/lunch Events BBQ in Uvalde/end Shamrock/604 miles
On May 10 we managed to get east of a nice supercell that was near Rock Springs, TX. It looked really nice on radar during the hour prior to getting into position, which was along U.S. 83 and a little bit south of 41. Unfortunately, our vantage point was a bit distant, and the storm went into a weakening trend. We stopped again just north of Leakey as the storm and its big (but harmless) wall cloud drifted by to the north. SPC’s enhanced slight risk area did work out too well for chasers, though that Rocksprings supercell was a goody early on.
For Round Two, we headed all of the way down to Eagle Pass to observe another storm which had little punch to it (below).
Wow — check out those two fabulous pictures that are provided for the May 11 chase day! SPC had a slight risk and a hatched hail area along the river near Eagle Pass. We waited around near the reservoir at Del Rio and then down at Eagle Pass. Supercells in Mexico were reluctant to move across the river for us. Finally, some big and tall storms went up north of Laredo, and we headed south on 83 from Catarina to check them out. The radar showed these to be formidable beasts, at least with regard to the VIL core/hail core. I elected to try to get south of these by going through the precipitation core, and luckily we didn’t have any hail problems. But, it was a bit slow and rainy with road construction — just not a lot of fun with the poor visibility. By the time we neared Laredo and escaped the core, it was rather dark and wet and messy. I shot zero storm photos, and we headed to a hotel in Laredo. May 12 was a reposition drive day back north to Shamrock.
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