We started the day in Odessa, Texas, and hung around the hotel until later in the afternoon as Helen wasn't feeling very well. Storms were firing to the north and north-west and I kept an eye on them on the radar, and also visually - they looked impressive as they erupted into the blue Texas sky.
Around 4pm or so we managed to depart, and targeted the southern cell. We raced up I20 to Stanton, and then headed across to Garden City. We noted strong rotation from time to time, although the cell was somewhat outflow dominant. Several wall clouds were observed, along with hail up to around 1 inch or a bit more. We dropped south from Garden City, as we didn't really want to run the gauntlet - we missed a couple of brief tornadoes, I think, by doing this, but we saw some stunning structure.
We then documented a second cell coming in from the west - this had a tornado warning on it, but from our vantage point it was too outflow dominant to be one which would spawn one, and it didn't, as far as we know. The storm did produce some hail larger than tennis balls though - we didn't want to get involved with its core!
We headed to Sterling City, and then gradually wound our way over to San Angelo, where we're staying the night. We saw some stunning lightning and I managed to get a few bolts on the new camera - I also did a little photography after dinner of the departing storms.
Would you say you are a little more cautious after Oklahoma last year Paul?
ReplyDeleteHarry Mac
Like the CG - centre of the frame as well!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Matt - yes, a lucky shot!
ReplyDeleteHarry - we were never keen on getting very close before last year, always happy to be a bit further back. However, last May 31st certainly focussed the mind on keeping a very close eye on the storm's developments.
Yeah - and you can see the great storm structure better from a little further out too.
ReplyDeleteHarry