First chase day

Short: Chased a line of storms which were outflow dominant. Heavy rain and lightning, and gusty winds, were the highlights.

Longer: Started the day in Weatherford after a well-needed sleep. Headed across to Walmart - Helen went and got some supplies whilst I set up the various equipment in the car. Seemed to take forever to get the GPS for the Baron system, etc, to be discovered, but in the end it was and we could start. By this time, outflow from storms to the north pushed down from the north-west, and this became the effective cold front through the day.

We headed east and then south, the latter on I-45. We stopped in Fairview for lunch, by this stage out of the storms. Thunder boomed to the north-west, but the skies ahead remained stubbornly cloudy. Even so, temperatures were around 30-31C with 21C dewpoints, so it was very juicy and potent air.

We continued south to Buffalo, and then south-west to Marquez, as a storm, which had remained reasonable discrete, was approaching. However, it got undercut by the advancing colder air, although some broad low-level rotation was evident on radar for a time. We were in a good spot in case anything brief spun-up but nothing did. After playing in some gusty winds, close lightning, and torrential rain, we headed back north. We've ended up at Corsicana for the night.

All in all a nice first day with thunderstorms - OK, so not supercells but we're happy enough to have seen some storms on the first chase day.

Below is a grab from my video camera of some lightning.