Friday 8 June 2012

2012 Chase Day 2 - Vidor and Beaumont (TX)

Fri 08 Jun

A quiet day today as we were basically waiting to leave early tomorrow morning to drive north to Oklahoma. A few high-based storms developed just to the south of Vidor early in the evening (5-6pm) producing some nice rumbles and some rain (probably a rainbow too given that it was still sunny).

After dinner we decided to chase an outflow boundary that was racing quickly westwards ahead of a large cluster of thunderstorms over Louisiana. We started driving as the outflow arrived at the house, but managed to get just ahead of it on the I10 to stop and take a few shots before it caught up with us. A notable increase in wind was felt as it came over, and some really low scud, rotating for a time before being lifted back into the base of the cloud.
Outflow boundary moving overhead on the I10 west of Vidor

A noticeable increase in wind was observed at the surface as the gust front passed overhead

Some signs of rotation from the gust front before it lifted again
We hopped back in the car to try and get ahead of the outflow boundary, and managed to several miles west of Beaumont. By this stage it had developed a really nice structure (sadly no camera on this venture either due to the unplanned nature, so no photos sadly), and the wind really picked up as it came over.

We decided to stay in this position and focus more on shooting lightning pics as darkness fell, and the storms over Louisiana came towards us. Initially lightning was primarily to our NE and SE from two separate cells, but became more extensive and it appears a new cell formed right over our heads on the outflow boundary, producing lightning to our west as well.

By now it was getting really dark and rain started falling so we decided to head back, passing through several cells which produced some moderate rain and frequent lightning.

No comments:

Post a Comment