June 5th. What more can be said??? One of the most incredible days in the 2025 storm chasing season! We started off the day in Lubbock, Texas. The target was to find the triple point, which appeared based on satellite and surface obs to be near Dora, New Mexico. We positioned ourselves near Causey, NM where 2 large updrafts were forming. We decided to play the southern most developing storm. The storm sat anchored for a couple of hours before it finally started its trek southeast along an outflow boundary from previous days storms. Just before it reached the Texas border it spun hard and became tornado warned. The merry go round ensued and quickly dropped a tapered cone tornado that was on the ground for a couple of minutes. It lifted as the storm moved east, but the low level mesocyclone stayed in tack. Soon several different tornadoes formed, and eventually stout stovepipe tornado descended. After this another elephant trunk shaped tornado formed as well. You could see the occlusion happened with the old meso dying and a new one forming east of us. We blasted east to get on the other side of it and quickly an extremely large, very dusty tornado formed. It grew to a mile wide and just missed the town of Morton, Texas. We got ahead of the tornado as it became completely obscured with dust and rain. Several miles east of town it disippated, and yet another tornado formed just to our north. Within a few minutes very strong RFD winds and atomized rain smacked into us, so we blasted east to try to get ahead of it. As we did, another ghostly white tornado came out of the rain just to our north. Realizing the mesocyclone was hopelessly buried in dirt and rain, we blasted east towards Lubbock. Another very large tornado occurred right to our north that we could not see, so we decided it was time to call off the chase. Later that evening, after we ended the chase, one last tornado formed near Reece Center. Since we were already done and settled into our hotel, we did not go back out because it would have been too late to make it there. An absolutely CRAZY day and I am so thankful there were no fatalities with this supercell. Enjoy the photos and this Youtube video of the Morton tornado. Another video will be made soon showing the rest of the tornadoes!
June 3rd, Windthorst, Texas Tornado Warned Supercell
June 3rd looked like a day with abundant moisture and CAPE, but fairly weak shear. We knew we’d need a boundary interaction to produce some rotating storms to get a tornado to form. We dropped south from OKC to Wichita Falls, TX to play a developing supercell. The cell quickly took on an outflow dominant look, so we decided to drop south of it and see if anything else would form. As we did near Archer City, a new updraft formed and merged with the old storm. An outflow boundary surged south from Oklahoma convection and smashed into our newly intensifying cell. Just what we needed! Soon, the low levels started spinning wildly! A couple of small funnels would form and dissipate. Then as rain and huge hail wrapped around the mesocyclone, a large cone funnel formed back in the rain. We could never confirm if it touched down or not, but usually when it is 3/4 of the way down, you would assume there would be a circulation. The darkened pic to highlight the funnel is courtesy of SLT guide James Breitenbach. It is certainly compelling that it could have touched down! Excuse the blurry image as I accidentally hit the focus ring as I sat the camcorder on the dash! Ugh….
May 23rd Kit Carson, CO Tornadic Supercell
Tough day! Two clear choices were in play. Chase the Cheyenne Ridge, which can (and did!) produce magical results. Or chase the eastern side of the Palmer Divide where dewpoints 5-7 degrees higher were forecast to pool along a boundary. I had a feeling the Cheyenne Ridge would get interesting, but also the latter target would also produce. Higher dews/instability usually result in better results. We caught a stunning structured supercell near Kit Carson. However the Cheyenne Ridge produced one supercell that dropped a few tornadoes. Our storm also produced a tornado, but had far superior storm structure. We chased it down towards Eads where it slowly started to weaken. Having the appearance of a spiraling barber pole, the structure was the best of 2025! We were a bit too far east (after chasing another storm) to get a good shot of the tornado, but a highly contrasted image clearly shows it. No regrets with a storm this pretty! Enjoy the pics!
May 18th Arnett, OK Tornadic Supercell
May 18th looked like a big day on paper. And it certainly fulfilled those expectations! There were a couple potential plays. Western Kansas to the north of the low, and western Oklahoma along the dryline where the subtropical jet punched in to it. After much deliberation, we chose western Oklahoma. Both targets produced and produced big! By mid afternoon multiple updrafts formed along the dryline, where a bit of a bulge was present. The southern most updraft ended up becoming the dominant one and quickly developed into a major supercell. We positioned ourselves down wind of it so we could look at the structure and well as any potential tornado development. Soon, a slender elephant trunk shaped tornado developed and danced across the ground for a few minutes. After it roped out, another funnel formed, but we couldn’t tell if it touched down or not. Moving back east into Arnett, we watched as a merry go round formed under the updraft base and eventually a stout tornado developed. This tornado unfortunately did cause damage and was given an EF3 rating. It came very close to town before it roped out. Another tornado developed from a new mesocyclone as often occurs in cyclic storms and dropped a tapered cone tornado that was on the ground for several minutes. As the storm continued moving northeast, it encountered cooler more stable air and eventually died off. A fantastic day for the tours and an amazing storm to watch! Enjoy the pics!
May 14th Hershey, Nebraska Tornadoes
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!
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 25th Muleshoe, Texas Tornadic Supercell
The arrival day for Tour #1 took us on an impromptu chase to west Texas. I knew it was a long way out and the we may or may not make it in time. We blasted west of Plainview just as the one decent (but short lived) tornado formed and dissipated. We arrived near Muleshoe to insane inflow winds into the supercell. Multiple wall clouds formed over the next 3 hours, but it just didn’t have that look. Areas of rotation formed, but never could tighten up enough to produce another tornado. The supercell persisted for many hours and was a prolific hail storm with stones up to 5 inches in diameter!!! Typically on arrival day, we restrict the chase within the state of Oklahoma, but this one was an exception, In the end, everyone enjoyed it, but a long way to go for what ended up transpiring, however it was tornado warned for several hours. 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 23rd, 2025 Southwest Kansas Tornado Warned Supercells
April 23rd took me to southwest Kansas. A surface low and triple point was southeast of Goodland. Models showed supercells developing on the dryline and interacting with the warm front as they moved northeast and were forecast to spin hard there. That’s exactly what happened. I intercepted one supercell near Healy, Kansas that attached itself to the warm front in an environment of high theta-e air and it became tornado warned. I had to drive through copious amounts of golfball sized hail to get to the hook and what a beauty it was!! Low bowl shaped wall cloud with rain/hail wrapping around it as it spun HARD. It tried to cone up a couple times but couldn’t maintain it’s tight rotation to get a tornado down. Eventually it moved into colder air north of the warm front and weakened. I dropped south to catch another developing supercell west of Kalvesta, Kansas. a massive bowl shaped lowering was spinning hard. It produced a tapered funnel halfway to the ground, but never did contact it. Structure was nice with that classic backward “C” shape to the RFD eroded updraft. It also crossed into colder air and weakened. By then it was almost dark and time to head to the hotel for the night. Fun day and enjoy the pics!
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…….
