May 28, 2002 Southwest Texas Storm

This day we headed for far west Texas in search of supercells. A stationary outflow boundary in the Midland/Odessa area compelled us to chase that region for starters but once we got into that area it became clear that the airmass in the vicinity of the boundary had failed to destabilize; surface air was much too dry to support low cloud bases/intense supercells. While we were sifting through very slim pickings (anemic, high-based hailstorms) over Ector County, a radar download revealed a new more intense storm rapidly developing over extreme northern Pecos County. Surface observations clearly showed that this storm had access to a feed of much deeper moisture from the southeast. We followed this storm as it evolved and moved southward into very rural areas south of I-10 and Bakersfield, TX. It was the first time we had ever ventured into the serious road hole south of the the interstate. But desperate patterns drive desperate chasers to new lows!

A positive polarity lightning bolt strikes ground east of a bell-shaped updraft south-southwest of Bakersfield, TX.	A visible satellite picture of the severe storm complex shown in the first 2 video stills.	We turn east on a horrendous gravel road built to service oil rig platforms in this rugged terrain. This view is looking north at a laminar shelf cloud/base associated with the weakening original storm seen in the first image.	The storm passes to our southeast and we set up the video cameras to film the backside of this pretty convective tower as it moves towards Sanderson, TX.
Four more images of the severe thunderstorm as it approaches the Rio Grande.