May 16th, Southeast Missouri Tornadofest

May 16th was advertised by SPC with a MODERATE RISK across the MS/OH river areas. It did not disappoint! Strong shear, high moisture and instability, and a slowly advancing front set the stage for what would be the most significant severe weather outbreak of the year so far. We started in Springfield, IL and blasted towards Sikeston, MO, which was my target. Storms formed west along the front and moved east and intensified. We decided to push west a bit and meet them as they came out of the Ozarks (a nearly impossible area to chase in!). As is often the case, we targeted the tail end storm, which typically gets the best feed of moisture, as it moved just north of Poplar Bluff. It had a great hook echo on radar and showed a strong velocity couplet. As it emerged onto the flat terrain, a truncated cone tornado formed and went on to be on the ground over 15 miles. It caused significant damage and was rated EF3. Another tornado formed just east of the first, a long slender elephant trunk shaped tornado, and ended up getting rated EF1. The supercell moved east across the Mississippi and Ohio rivers west of Paducah, and due to terrain and poor road networks, we couldn’t stay up with it.

More storms formed back west into southeast Missouri, so we pursued them. We caught up to them just west of Morley. An elephant trunk shaped funnel descended and touched down just west of town causing EF1 damage. Soon another EF1 tornado formed just to out northeast and eventually dissipated as it crossed the river. Numerous tornadoes occurred across this area during this event, causing extensive damage and unfortunately even loss of life. Our heartfelt sympathy goes out to those who suffered, including a tornado that directly hit St Louis. Please take the time to donate to local charities to help those impacted by these tornadoes and supercell thunderstorms.

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 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:

June 25th Whitman, Nebraska Incredible Supercell and Strong Tornado

June 25th had a lot going for it. Dewpoints in the 70s, an old outflow boundary, high CAPE and convergence would get storms exploding in the afternoon hours. We targeted a pair of severe storms west of O’Neill, NE and watched them intensify and move south. However the western most storm quickly died when it moved over the boundary and the second one also met the same fate. Meanwhile towards Norfolk a supercell became tornado warned and produced a brief tornado. I always watch trends in surface observations and satellite and noticed the boundary sharpening up and angling towards the northwest to the west of us. Moisture was rapidly increasing with dewpoints in Thedford, NE rising from the low 60s into the low 70s with strong easterly winds. Soon, a storm formed along the boundary northwest of Mullin and anchored for awhile. It steadily intensified as we blasted west. By the time we got to Thedford, the storm was strongly severe and we could see an impressive mammatus field under the anvil. As we continued westward to get a better view, the storm formed a strong couplet and a hook. Structure was starting to become visible as we approached Mullin. We continued west and soon were greeted with a magnificent sculpted supercell and a rapidly growing tornado! The tornado grew to an impressive cone, then wedge as it moved south towards the small town of Whitman. We stopped about 3 miles from it as it was getting ready to cross the road and continue southward where we had no south roads! Frustrating! The sight of both the supercell with large tornado under was the best I’d seen in 2024!! Just an amazing scene! We had to back track to Mullen and drop south so we could catch up to the supercell again. We would not see the updraft again in the daylight. As it approached North Platte, it weakened and eventually died. An absolute phenomenal day! Unfortunately the tornado hit a couple of houses near Whitman and caused significant damage and 1 injury. I shudder to think what could have happened if it hit the town directly!

Check out our Youtube video from the even here:

https://youtu.be/Zx9_R1aMxQ0

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