Map Legend
Red = The storm
Green = Our route
Blue = Weather phenomena we observed

As I said earlier, we started off the chase near Big Spring, TX. There were two distinct storms that were in the area. The first northern storm started out much stronger than the 2nd, but eventually merged with the southern storm. When your chasing you generally try to stay ahead of the storm to the southeast side. So we were right where we wanted to be for the first one, but had to play some catch up once the storms merged to get ahead of the southern one. Since the storm was moving 35-40 miles per hour, it took us about an hour and a half to get to the right part of the southern one (as noted on the map).

Most of the video that we posted was from the northern storm, because when we caught up to the southern one it was already 8 PM and starting to get dark.

I marked some spots on the map where we saw interesting weather in blue.

Hi all,

I will have to say: after the bust Tuesday that had a much bigger atmospheric setup, I was not very enthusiastic about the tornadic potential in West Texas, but I figured since we were out here to storm chase we might as well head over there. At least we might see some pretty thunderstorms.

We started the day yesterday in Gainesville, TX which is north of Dallas. It was about a 3:30 drive to get to Abilene, TX which is where my initial target was. By the time we got into to Abilene (about 2:30 PM) there were a number of supercell thunderstorms that had already fired up along the TX/NM border. We continued west down I-20 and caught up to the storm near the town of Big Spring, TX. The storm had multiple lowerings, wall clouds, gustnados, and maybe even a brief tornado. (We are reviewing the video.)

We stayed on the storm as best we could, and captured some great video in the process.

Avi put together a quick montage which is uploading to YouTube right now. I have to check out of our hotel so this post is quick. But more info will come about our fun in West Texas from the road. And the video, of course.

Andy

A Tornado Watch has just been issued for West Texas.

Avi and I have just left Abilene and are moving West on Interstate 20 towards Sweetwater. When we get to Sweetwater we will decide whether we want to go to the North towards Lubbock, are continue West to Big Springs.

The thunderstorms have already fired up on the dryline to our west so we will be playing a little bit of catch up but there is still a good 6 hours of daylight left.

More to come… webcam is up.

Andy

Well folks, yesterday was a bust. However, we took some nice pictures and shot video of the storm base. Feel free to use any of these pictures for your desktop background. The movie clip shows a “beaver tail”: “Under the storm and closer to where most tornadoes are found, evidence of a supercell and likelihood of a tornado includes inflow bands (particularly when curved) such as a “beaver tail”…”

Today looks like not a lot of potential for tornadoes, but there is enough for us to head to Abilene, Texas to see what we can find.

Today ended up being a no tornado day. It had good potential but the weather didn’t quite cooperate. Actually there was one brief tornado touchdown in SE Kansas, but that was 300 miles away.

A common misconception of chasing is that like in the movie Twister, tornadoes happen multiple times a day all over the place. There are days like that…. but maybe once every few years. On average, a chaser sees a tornado once every 10 days that they go out and chase. It’s really hard to get the proper setup, and be in the right place, at the right time.

Anyway… we got some nice pictures of some cumulus clouds, and I captured a little video of a nice cloud base on a stronger storm that I will post tomorrow.

Also a quick note, the live webcam isn’t always up and running when we are on the road. This is because we have to have internet connection from my Sprint Mobile Broadband card to broadcast the webcam. This means that sometimes when we are on dirt roads, we don’t have internet access, thus no webcam.

Another question I have received is:
What does your laptop screen look like in the heat of the chase?
Continue reading →

Any Day Now!

354 PM CDT MON MAY 12 2008

ALL INDICATIONS ARE THAT SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS WILL DEVELOP RAPIDLY ALONG THE DRY LINE AS THE COLD FRONT OVERTAKES IT… BEGINNING BETWEEN CUSHING AND NORMAN BY 5 PM. ADDITIONAL DEVELOPMENT IS LIKELY SOUTHWARD TO THE RED RIVER REGION BETWEEN WAURIKA AND HENRIETTA. WITH HIGHLY UNSTABLE CONDITIONS PRESENT… AND STRONG VERTICAL WIND SHEAR… ORGANIZED SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS AND SUPERCELLS WILL BE LIKELY. VERY LARGE HAIL… POSSIBLY TO BASEBALL SIZE OR LARGER… WILL BE THE MAIN CONCERN ALONG WITH DAMAGING WINDS AND ISOLATED TORNADOES

Still in Waurika. Still Waiting for T-Storms to develop.

We are not alone. Here is a map of all of the storm chasers that are in our area.

This data of chaser GPS locations are aggregated by Spotter Network

We probably won’t move until we see something develop on the radar. We are in a very nice internet hotspot right here. If you are ever in Waurika and need to check you email, or take a shower, this is the place.

Andy

The line of storms is just barely getting started in our area. I made this map from my Gibson Ridge Radar software. You can see that we are in the right spot. I am still thinking that the storms start to pop up in the next 60 minutes.

Avi and I are still sitting at the Waurika Travel Stop in Waurika, OK

Tornado Watch was just issued for our area and we are starting to see some clouds building over us….

We will probably move at some point in the next 30 minutes.

Currently we are in Waurika, OK and we are a few hours early. We found a good place to get data at the corner of US70 and US 81.

Storms are expected to pop up in the 3-4PM time frame.

Camera is up and running.