The Beautiful May 24, 2001 Rocksprings, TX HP supercell
Starting the day with a tour of the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas we got a late start heading to our target area west of Junction. This was due to the fact that one of our vehicles blew its oil pump (which we changed the next day). No problem! Packing ourselves into two 15-passenger vans, we got westbound on I-10, dealing with horrific traffic on the way out of town. Eventually, we got to our target area just in time to watch strong severe storms mature southwest of Junction. The day's convective activity would culminate in a gorgeous melding of cloud features, colors and landscape that would not soon be forgotten! To read the full chase summary click here.
Near the intersection of Hwy 41 and 377 we look to our south to see a severe storm in progress. Note the updraft to the right and hail-filled downdraft (with rainfoot) to the left.
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Here is some of the hail produced by the storm in the preceding picture. The hail had fallen about 45 minutes before the time of this picture! |
To our distant west was a beautiful tiered shelf cloud and we decided to intercept this storm due to its beautiful appearance. |
Winding our way northward on SR 2630 north of Rocksprings, the storm slowly moves towards us from the southwest. Note the multiple layers within the convective structure, from the shelf cloud at low-levels to the mid-level collar clouds. |
Another view of the storm, with part of the tour group in the foreground.
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Focusing on the northern side of the shelf cloud. Note the orange lighting (due to setting sun) and inflow tail. The U.S. Border Patrol vehicle can be seen in the right side of the picture. They were watching the storm with us.
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The southern wall of the storm is impressive! |
Dramatic orange glow associated with refraction of light through the rain falling downstream of the updraft. Beautiful! |