May 16, 2002 Nocturnal "Gem": Texas Panhandle Liberty Bell Storm

Tour 2, 2002 concluded with a terrific nighttime lightning show produced by a couple of supercells over the eastern Texas Panhandle. This day, like so many others, offered several possible scenarios and you can only be in one place at a time so the choice was tough. Eventually, we settled on the idea that storms would develop in the moist upslope flow regime developing over the central/western Oklahoma Panhandle/northern Texas panhandle. However, en route to the target area we aborted when we saw intense convection developing to our south within a tongue of even richer moisture that we knew was feeding into the eastern Panhandle. Earlier uncertainty about whether this latter region would pan out gave way to an aggressive re-targeting and we found ourselves on a dying LP supercell in western Oklahoma near Reydon. However, soon a new storm developed near Mendota, TX and we went west to intercept, eventually stopping along a rural ranch road to enjoy the scene before us. We stayed at this same location (just north of Ranch 277 about 7 miles southwest of Gem, TX) for over one hour and moved only when a second very large severe thunderstorm overtook us and rocked our world with 70 mph winds and ice bombs!

Van #1 excitedly embark on the chase.	We have designs on this cumulonimbus to our southwest. The storm is currently near Reydon, Oklahoma.	Arced lightning underneath the storm anvil.
Lightning illuminates the "Liberty Bell" shaped storm to our distant west.	An "anvil bolt" strikes beneath the leading anvil.	Lightning illuminated mammatus clouds overhead.	Another lightning back-lit view of the tiered supercell.
Anvil crawlers arc outwards into the vault east of the mid-level storm base.	Note the forked lightning and multiple layers evident in the storm.	Forked lightning lights up the sky! Note the reflection of one of the lightning branches in the lens!