Another chase close to home. I had originally planned on heading out after work. However, I had to work overtime to help cover some sick leave. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise for me, as it delayed my departure, and helped me land the storm of the day.
At 12z (7am CDT), a dryline was located in eastern New Mexico. It would slowly mix east during the day and finally reach a Guymon-Dalhart-Hereford line. At the same time, an outflow boundary from an early morning MCS in Oklahoma was pushing westward across the Panhandles.
By 4:00pm, storms had begun to fire along the dryline near Tulia and Silverton, as well as other storms in the central Texas Panhandle. A Tornado Watch was also issued. Fresh bodies came on-duty, and I was released. So, the chase was on.
Initial target: Childress, TX
Actual target: Amarillo, TX
4:15pm CDT (2115z)
After leaving work, I had to get gas and setup the equipment, which took some time. Storms had begun to develop between Amarillo and Dumas, and I tended to intercept these near Four Way. However, a new storm developed between Amarillo and Four Way and prevented that idea. So, I decided to head over to Fritch to pick it up there. I headed NE on the Fritch Highway (TX-136). However, the storm prevented me from getting all the way to Fritch, and I pulled over about 10 miles south of town to re-evaluate the situation.
The storm (Storm-A) did not look very visually impressive. However, there was some very good midlevel rotation on radar. I also noticed some activity developing to the S and SE. Some of these storms were being ingested by Storm-A. The trajectory of the ingestion and further structure development indicated a high probability that the storm was strengthening rapidly. I decided to head over the Panhandle, so I backtracked south and headed east on FM 293. As soon as I turned east, Storm-A developed a very impressive radar signature, with a well-defined hook.
Storm-A was moving east at about 20mph. It was easy to stay ahead and keep a good spotting position. I pulled over the junction of FM 293 and FM 1342 to watch for a bit. It began to develop a nice wall cloud at this point. I relocated east to Panhandle where I watched the wall cloud become partially wrapped in rain.
6:39pm CDT (2339z)
In order to stay ahead of the storm, I dropped south and east of Panhandle on FM 293. I saw an older wall cloud occlude, and a new meso rapidly form on the southwest flank of the storm. A funnel developed from this new meso and was very close to the ground. It was too far away for me to see a debris cloud at ground level, but there were reports from a sheriff's deputy of a tornado from that portion of the storm at the same time I shot this video. As close as it is to the ground in this video, I feel about 95% confident that is a tornado.
I continued east on FM 293 and dropped south on FM 295 towards Groom. I watched the storm for a bit here before heading back home.
SUMMARY:
I had not expected to chase this close to home today. I was targeting Childress, but work obligations kept me local. In retrospect, that wasn't bad at all. By the looks of things on Spotter Network, 90% of the chasers targeted the Childress-Plainview area, and very few stayed around Amarillo. I never saw another chaser or spotter on my storm. That's a rare thing nowadays. So, I had a tornadic storm almost completely to myself and in an area with a good road network. Definitely could not ask for anything better.
