June 10th took us deep into southwest Texas in the Davis Mountains. One of the prettiest places in the state. Northwest flow aloft and southeast surface winds provided decent shear, and dewpoints in the low to mid 60s, fueled 3000 CAPE. The ingredients were there for severe storms and supercells. What we didn’t expect was to see a tornado, albeit a weak one! Mid afternoon we were near Alpine watching storms come off Mt Livermore and move southeast. The struggled mightily, so we left there and headed west to the surface triple point just west of Marfa. A supercell had formed and was anchored so we knew it would be spinning. As we arrived, a big blocky wall cloud was present with intense cgs raining down to our west. Soon a clear slot formed and you coudl see the RFD wrapping around the mesocyclone. Within another 15 minutes a dirt column formed and a small funnel was visible at cloud base. This persisted for about 8 minutes. What a surprise! The storm became outflow dominant due to weak flow at anvil level, and soon a tornado warning was issued (for the one we saw, but reported by another storm chaser!). We stayed with it for a bit longer until the outflow surged out from the supercell and it collapsed. A nice end to a day that we though would produce a decent storm. Enjoy the pics!
June 8th Lakeview, Texas Tornado Warned Supercell
June 8th featured a couple of different plays. First one could play the cold front dropping south across the high plains into the OK/TX panhandles. This ultimately produced one tornadic storm that was high based ingesting only dewpoints in the 50s, but still managed to drop a couple of tornadoes. The second play was to chase the area just off the caprock southeast of Amarillo along an outflow boundary with extreme instability and very high dewpoints in the 70s. We chose the southern play based on the great parameters. We arrived in Amarillo as cumulus towers formed southeast of town and developed into severe thunderstorms. One storm latched on to the boundary and spun like crazy, getting tornado warned. We stayed with it south of Claude all the way down to Lakeview and beyond. It was an electrified machine. It also produced huge hail and tried numerous times to produce a tornado. But it did not unfortunately. It was one of those days where the least likely area produced the only decent tornado of the day. Only a couple of chasers played the northern play and were coming from Denver headed to the southern target when the northern storm went up and produced. Luck of the draw lol!!! Anyway, our supercell was a beauty! It eventually gusted out so we moved southwest along the dryline to play more supercells. We encountered one near Jayton that came very close to producing a tornado. It was also tornado warned. Soon, everything merged into a line and the show was over. Fun day for all! Enjoy the pics!
June 5th Morton, Texas Wedge Tornado and Many More!!!!!
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 25th Afton, Texas Tornadic Supercell
May 25th looked like a high CAPE, lower shear day. A supercell formed west of Matador early in the afternoon, and drifted south along a boundary. It just never had the look like it wanted to produce. Flow around 850-700mb was lacking and it showed. Further south from town, we ended up near Afton on an FM road. Chaser traffic was pretty bad, but we managed to get out from under the hook and watched as the storm’s RFD really cranked up. A truncated cone funnel formed and reportedly touched down. Within a few minutes it dissipated and the storm became outflow dominant. Still in chase mode, we targeted a new supercell southwest of Haskell. By the time we got there, the tail end storm rapidly intensified. Reports of a brief tornado came in, but from our location northeast of the updraft, looking down the notch, we could not confirm or deny. A couple of suspicious lowerings were observed, but that was about it. The electrification of this storm was other worldly! Eventually it weakened as a cluster formed, so we blew it off and headed back to Oklahoma City for other chase day. An exciting day that we all enjoyed some edge of your seats chasing! We hope you like 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 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 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…….
