Wasn’t expecting a lot on May 14th. Moisture was lacking, but shear and lift were good. We chased a high based supercell north of McCook, NE and stayed with it as it moved north. It eventually dissipated as a wind shift boundary west of North Platte generated numerous severe thunderstorms. We approached North Platte as a landspout tornado formed south of Hershey. It persisted for several minutes before roping out. Soon a second tornado formed and became quite pretty! It lasted over 10 minutes before diminishing. Not long after that another tornado formed. It morphed into a slender elephant trunk shaped tornado and also lasted over 10 minutes. Finally we decided to head west on I-80 to the storm, now a formidable supercell. Decent structure and huge hail greeted us north of Hershey, and we decided to head back east as it rapidly weakened when it came off the boundary. A lot of fun today. Great lightning, nice tornadoes and good storm structure! Enjoy the photos!
May 4th Orla, Texas Gorgeous Supercell
May 4th brought a new trough into the southwest US. Moisture was still limited from the previous trough that pushed a front into the gulf. It usually takes 4 days minimum to get moisture back after that occurs, and this was the 4th day. A stout dryline was evident in southwest Texas off the Guadalupe mountains and storms formed along it. Due to lower moisture quality, the storms initially were higher based. Shear steadily increased and a beautiful supercell emerged from a cluster of cells southeast of Carlsbad. As the storm moved east, it encountered better moisture and instability and continued to intensify. Although never a threat to become tornadic, the structure was quite pretty! Right at sunset it became very electrified producing numerous cg strikes each minute. Finally, we left it at dark and headed to our hotel to get ready for the next day. We hope you enjoy the pics!
May 1st Westway, Texas Tornado Warned Supercell
May 1st set up was far from ideal. Limited moisture was present moving into the upslope play of northeast New Mexico. Shear was great, as was lift. However, limited moisture also meant limited instability. Despite all that, severe storms formed south near Logan, NM as moved east. The tail end storm latched onto the old frontal boundary draped across the region and started spinning hard. As the storm crossed the Texas border, it became tornado warned. The structure was amazing! As it churned southeast along the boundary, it produced hail tennisball sized and had numerous lowering over time. Headin into the Hereford area, the hail became intense so we chose to push ahead and northeast of it and get out of its way. For a day that wasn’t advertised, a bit of panhandle magic certainly became the story of the day! Enjoy the pics!
April 26th Roswell, New Mexico Tornadic Supercell
April 26th featured an upslope/dryline play in eastern New Mexico. Storms formed along and north of an outflow boundary. We intercepted the triple point storm that developed just northeast of town and kept back building at the triple point until it got so strong it moved southeast along the boundary. It didn’t take long in the highly sheared environment for it to start rotating strongly. Inflow winds of 50 mph fed the storm. There was so much dirt being sucked into the updraft at times, you could see the dirt cloud rise into the updraft base. Eventually the low levels started rotating as a very obvious mesocyclone formed. A clear slot wrapped around the meso and a long snaking elephant trunk shaped funnel, then tornado descended from cloud base. Dirt partially obscured it from time to time and it dissipated after about 5 minutes. The storm was a prolific hailer as ell we 3-4 inch stones reported. We stay with it until dark when it weakened. A fun day and a major powerful supercell was incredible to experience from birth to death. Enjoy the pics!
April 24th, 2025 Matador, Texas Tornadic Supercell
What a day April 24th was!! There was a high threat for supercells and if one could latch on to a boundary in place it had the potential to produce tornadoes. Strong shear, great moisture for late April standards, and good instability were all present. I headed down from Woodward to the Texas Rolling Plains. When I arrived, a supercell had formed and started spinning hard not far from Silverton. As I approached it from the east at Turkey, I encountered baseball sized hail and dropped south to get out of it. I set up my camera and soon an elephant trunk shaped tornado formed. It planted firmly for about 10 minutes before dissipating. Soon the storm started reorganizing and I dropped south to just north of Matador. It cycled and developed a wall cloud, then a bowl and then a multivortex tornado. That turned into a huge cone, then close to a wedge before becoming rain wrapped. It was on the ground for probably 25-30 minutes!! After that the storm became quite HP and, having to be back in Oklahoma City that night, I left it and proceeded back to our base city. An amazing day, structure, 2 tornadoes, huge hail and lightning. Enjoy the pics!
April 19, 2025 Mertzon, Texas Tornado
April 19th was a long drive. Up at 4am to hit the road, we blasted nearly 700 miles, only to miss the best tornado of the day by 20 minutes. Talk about frustration! Models/NWS/SPC stated the tornado threat wouldn’t ramp up until after 6pm when the low level jet kicked in. All were wrong! Before 4pm a supercell hit the boundary and became tornadic. By the time we arrived, that storm had weakened so we targeted another supercell west/northwest of San Angelo. It also became briefly tornadic as the main meso wrapped up and dropped a cone funnel to the ground! It was only down a couple of minutes before lifting back up. A long drive, but we at least were able to capture a tornado!
April 2-4 Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas Tornado Warned Supercells
We ran an on call storm chasing tour in TN/AR/TX during the April 2-4 period. We caught numerous tornado warned supercells, however on the Lake City, AR day (4/2), we debated whether to play west of the MS river or east. (Very few crossings!) Parameters were pretty sweet. We ultimately chose east (ugh) due to several discrete cells and at that time nothing west of the river. Sooo, no tornado for us! Chased a half dozen tor warned storms, but nothing produced in TN, till after midnight of course.
Second day we chased southwest AR/NW LA. Storms formed southwest of us (Ida, LA) and became tor warned. As they approached and crossed the front into wet, cool, stratus filled skies that was the end. Elevated for certain.
Last day (4./4), after spending the night in Texarkana, we stayed close. We were torn between the ne TX play or venturing up towards Little Rock as models were producing isolated supercells ahead of the front. We started towards Little Rock (Thinking of the Lake City event and hoping for Part 2!) and turned back around as several supercells emerged out of junky clusters in northeast Texas. We managed to catch one tornadic supercell between Texarkana and Douglassville, TX. A couple tornado reports came across, but appeared to be buried back in the Rear flank core around the hook. We found a spot by a lake as the storm approached. It was INSANELY electrified. You could see a VERY low wall cloud (possible messy circulation?) that persisted for many minutes before CGs hitting on the other side of us ran us back in to the van.
Fun trip, a bit disappointing that we didn’t catch the Lake City tornado, but you have to make choices and with several developing supercells east of the river, there was no way we were staying west. Even SPC’s MD hit western TN the hardest. Funny thing, we actually drove through Jonesboro and Lake City coming down from Springfield, MO that day. Ironic as can be…….
November 2nd Oil City, New Mexico Tornado
Once in a great while, a November set up needs to be chased. Nov 2/3 looked quite volatile in the southern plains/high plains so we ran one of our on call tours. With a full van we headed south from Denver to chase a triple point play in southwest Texas/southeast New Mexico. We arrived after a nearly 700 mile drive to watch a supercell favorably interact with the warm front/outflow boundary and spin like crazy. A broad circulation occurred southwest of Oil City and produced a 10-15 minute tornado. As the storm moved east towards Andrews, Texas, it continued to be tornado warned but slowly weakened. Another supercell formed south of town and also became tornado warned. It appeared to be slightly elevated, but produced insane lightning and huge hail. The second day we chased in Oklahoma, however storms were quite linear with embedded mesos and several became tornado warned. None of them had the look, and as they crossed the warm front into colder air, it was obvious they weren’t going to become tornadic. We headed back west and spent the night in Amarillo, driving north through snow into Colorado. All in all, a fun trip and anytime you get a nice supercell and a tornado in November it was worth it! Enjoy the pics!
Here is a link to our Youtube video from the day as well:
Late July/August Desert Thunder Tours
Every year we run our lightning tours. This year was an AMAZING period in Arizona while we were there! Of the 15 days we chased there, we had storms, often severe, on 14 of those days. From incredible lightning west of Tucson to phenomenal lighting over the Grand Canyon, this year’s images are some of my favorites! There are many features in Arizona that are incredibly beautiful when a storm, lighting and rainbows are present. The saguaro cactus and other cactus varieties are amazing to photograph. Red rock canyons abound, and storms form usually over the higher terrain before thunderstorm outflows push onto the desert floors and generate more storms due to lifting warm and moist air upward. We hope you enjoy these images as much as we did witnessing them firsthand! You can join us too on these incredible adventures. Word or caution, these tours sell out FAST! Enjoy!
July 7th Lubbock, Texas Supercells
A major change in the weather pattern started around July 5th. An expanding ridge was developing in the west, with one lone weak short wave dropping down the eastern side of it into the southern plains. This is very late in the season to be chasing that far south, but you chase what nature gives you! We headed south on the first day of the tour and were greeted with several high based storms, some rotating, northwest of Lubbock. A couple mid level funnels occurred, as did hail baseball sized, however, due to high bases, there was virtually no tornado threat. Tons of blowing dust happened as thunderstorm outflows became quite strong, and many gustnados formed. Pretty cool sight, but this would be the last day of this tour that would chase the plains states. Summer heat and ridging came early this year.
