Tag Archives | thunderstorm hail

July 4th Chugwater, Wyoming Tornado

What a way to spend the 4th of July! We decided mid morning that it looked too tempting not to chase this day. Upslope flow into the Laramie Range in southeast Wyoming was the hot spot. Good shear,  instability and moisture would help form an intense supercell mid afternoon. This storm crossed the Laramie Range and intensified as it moved east off the higher terrain. We were just west, then southwest of town as the storm spun hard. A funnel formed and nearly touched down as it crossed the mountains. Once close to town a very low and strongly rotating wall cloud formed. Soon a nice cone shaped tornado touched down and stay on the ground for nearly 25 minutes! It crossed I-25 south of town and as the cell moved east it encountered more stable air and weakened.

This supercell had fantastic structure, intense cloud to ground lightning and baseball sized hail.  The tornado caused no damage thankfully and was a treat to watch and photograph. In hindsight I wish we would have stayed south of it instead to trying to stay in front of the storm. The views from the south were stunning! A fun way for us to spend the 4th of July. Once we got back home after dark, we had our own private fireworks from a large pack we bough last year in Missouri. Enjoy the pics!

May 9th Southwest Texas Tornadic Supercells

May 9th was a wild day in Texas and New Mexico. A large closed low over the desert southwest would slowly approach the region. Strong deep layer shear, however with fairly weak surface winds, would overspread the area by late afternoon. Decent moisture and instability would contribute to a very unstable airmass. Storms exploded in the higher terrain of northeast New Mexico first, then later developed over southeast New Mexico and eventually spread into southwest Texas. We intercepted a tornado warned storm near Clovis, New Mexico which didn’t have the appearance of becoming tornadic. Then another supercell developed in southwest Texas and moved towards Enochs. Just northeast of Enochs it produced two tornadoes. We would continue following it northeast until it weakened near dark. At that time another supercell formed near Hobbs, New Mexico and quickly raced northeast towards Whiteface, Texas. This storm spun hard, but never could produce a tornado. Overall, the weak low level shear would result in only brief tornadoes this day, but it was still a great chase event.