Start: Oklahoma City
Lunch: Braums in Denton
End: Waco (426 miles)
Tour 4, with John L and Ron R as guides, began this day in OKC and we headed south to a boundary in Texas. We made our way through Fort Worth and continued to about Cleburne and Covington.
We were not expecting too much in the way of severe weather, as shear would be marginal at best for supercells. Instability was very good on the east side of the boundary. We watched some storms try to organize near Cleburne, and finally this one west of Covington was sporting a distinct lowering, with rotation.
Perhaps this clip showing the rotation, shot by Carol C and on her FB page, will work for you! That thing might have been pretty dang close to causing a surface-based circulation! We didn’t see any evidence of a tornado.
Given the mediocre shear, storms were not able to remain strong for very long. We headed down 35 to Waco and saw another cell develop an impressive precipitation core, just to our east.
It looked more like a storm near Barstow, California, than a storm near Waco. This cell, and/or another one or two, lured us eastward (some 30 miles east of Waco, maybe near Kirk, TX?) and as it got dark it looked like these were better organized, and we were treated to a little storm structure, lightning, and strong wind as the storms moved through.
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