Chase Day 12 - Texas Caprock

Today was likely to get messy fairly quickly, with the expectation of scattered initially discrete supercells upscaling into a bowing MCS / derecho by the overnight period. This made it difficult to pick a specific target given potential for quick upscaling and then needing to outrun an accelerating thunderstorm complex. An old outflow boundary was draped NW to SE through the Texas Panhandle, and given a semi-consistent signal in CAM guidance for a long-tracked supercell in the vicinity of the Caprock we chose Clarendon (TX) as our initial target.

When staying in Amarillo (TX) it's almost compulsory to visit the Big Texan Steakhouse, so today we opted to have brunch here before setting off for Clarendon. After waiting a couple of hours for convection to initiate, we hopped on a storm that erupted just SE of Amarillo near Claude (TX). Unfortunately, the canyons in this area make road options very few and far between, and we had to choose a route south of Clarendon which meant being quite far away from the storm for a while before it made better progress SE'wards towards us. It became tornado-warned at times, and despite having some interesting lowerings from our vantage point we couldn't see much evidence of a tornado. By the time the supercell was closer to us it was rather outflow dominant, with a lot of hail and strong winds - gusts up to 90 mph were measured by mobile mesonet stations, and hail up to 4.25 inches in diameter by other chasers in the core.

By the time we made it to Turkey (TX) we decided to leave the storm as the storm motion and road network weren't particularly favourable to keep up with it. We headed back to Clarendon — noting wind damage along the way with twisted street signs, bits of metal sheeting and agricultural sprayers — west to Claude and then south to Lubbock to see if we could jump on any other storms, but most were behind a stout outflow boundary and not especially severe. Frustratingly, a separate discrete supercell in the far western Oklahoma Panhandle produced a series of photogenic tornadoes, but we shan't talk about that...

Chase Day 11 - northeast New Mexico

As the drive to our target of Clayton (NM) was less than 2 hours, we had a leisurely start to the day visiting Walmart and eating at Pizza Hut in Guymon (OK). Eventually we got on the road, and as we arrived at Clayton a splitting supercell was underway to the northwest of town. After briefly bumping into some other British chasers at a petrol station, we followed the right-mover southeastwards for an hour or so, with some nice structure at times, before it weakened as it approached the Texas border. 

      Splitting supercell NW of Clayton (NM)

As luck would have it, a second supercell had developed some ways back to the northwest, and was already tornado-warned... although from our vantage point the base was fairly high, but due to the poor road network we ambled back north to park up and watch it gradually get closer to us. By chance, we stumbled across some hail from the first storm still left on the ground, some pieces up to ping pong ball size. 

Hail besides a Quarter coin (24 mm diameter, suggesting hail was >30 mm in diameter)

We spent the next hour or two watching this nicely sculpted low-precipitation supercell gradually approach us from the northwest... the structure was incredibly, especially when combined with the increasing orange light as the sun began to set. 

Incredible supercell structure near Amistad NM

We let the storm pass over the road to our north and east, and then followed it back southeastwards into the Texas Panhandle as darkness fell, stopping to take a few lightning pictures along the way, before checking in to a hotel in Amarillo (TX) for the night.

Lightning under moonlight, west of Channing (TX)

Chase Day 10 - SE Colorado into Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles

FRI 06 JUN  

Difficult decision today - two target areas, very similar to the previous day. We could stay down near Lubbock (TX) and aim for a preliminary target of Levelland, about an hour from our hotel in Plainview (TX), or drive 3 hours north into SE Colorado with an initial target of Campo (CO). 

SPC forecast issued 16:30Z 06 June 2025

Given late initiation in both targets we sat in Plainview for a while to contemplate, taking into consideration the flooding of last night and the impacts that may have on the dirt roads. There was also an element of "we played down here yesterday, might be nice to try somewhere else" too. In the end, we made a last-minute decision to try Colorado instead so headed north and arrived at Campo with a nice supercell already underway to the west near Kim (CO). 

View to the NW just south of Campo (CO)

Due to limited road options, we waited a fair while for the storm to get closer, and so began several hours of tracking this discrete supercell progressively southeastwards across the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles. There were a few brief tornadoes with this storm, but we struggled to see them due to a combination of being on the move at the time of occurrence and/or being obscured by rain in this high precipitation storm. 

We heard the tornado sirens as we drove through the towns of Texhoma, Gruver (TX) and Spearman (TX) in advance of the storm, and once south of Spearman ran out of road options so had to let the storm pass to our north and clear away to the southeast. We sat and watched the constant lightning for a bit, then headed to a hotel in Guymon (OK) for the night - only to arrive as another tornado-warned storm arrived! In the end this produced a bit of wind and hail, but nothing severe for the town.

Chase Day 9 - West Texas

THU 05 JUN 

What a day... my personal best chase day to date. We left our hotel in Canyon (TX) late morning and ambled south, through extensive stratus, mist and drizzle, to sit on an old outflow boundary at Brownfield (TX). Any supercells that can latch onto pre-existing boundaries can ingest enhanced low-level vorticity which can increase the probability of tornadogenesis, so we were keeping a close eye on where this boundary was located at a given time. 

SPC forecast issued 16:30Z 05 June 2025

After grabbing some lunch, we nudged gradually northwards and westwards to keep close to the boundary, whilst keeping an eye on a couple of storms that were developing in the vicinity of Portales (NM) and Dora (NM) to our northwest. Eventually these storms started to gain strength on radar, and we decided to jump on the southern one near Dora (NM) as this would likely become the dominant cell given it was impeding the inflow to the storm to its north. We didn't have to wait long for the first tornado to develop near Garrison (NM), albeit reasonably brief, and watched it rope out. 

First tornado near Garrison (NM)

We then followed the storm progressively east-southeastwards for several hours as it moved from eastern New Mexico into west Texas, producing a multitude of tornadoes - many were reasonably short-lived, but a much more significant wedge developed near to and passed just north of Morton (TX), shrouded in significant amounts of dust. Away from the main tornado, numerous small, brief circulations developed closer to us, including a weak anticyclonic tornado that moved northwards across the road immediately in front of us.

New tornadoes form SE of Maple (TX)

The beginning of the Morton (TX) wedge

Given the amount of dust that had been kicked up, making it hard to get a visual of the large tornado northeast of Morton, we decided to make faster progress southeastwards to get further ahead of the storm and then park up and let it get closer to us. 

Dusty tornado continues to trundle to the east of Morton (TX)

Once we managed to get a visual just north of Smyer (TX) it appeared there was no tornado on the ground initially, however with time several brief, smaller tornadoes developed with eventually a new wedge forming. 

New tornadoes form just north of Smyer (TX)

As we nudged a little bit further east, a separate satellite tornado became visible to the east of the main wedge. At this point, knowing this storm was heading straight for the Lubbock metro area, we decided to get ahead of the storm once more and drove round the southern side of Lubbock before stopping on the SE side (to avoid the traffic during the storm). The mesonet weather station reported a gust of 101 mph at Smyer, but it appeared the tornado risk was reducing with the storm as it moved through Lubbock so we opted to park up under a shelter in Slaton (TX) and let the storm move over us to see if we could find some hail. Roads soon became rivers, and once the storm had passed we headed north to Plainview (TX) to find a hotel for the night, knowing that there would likely be issues with hail damage and flooding in Lubbock.

Chase Day 8 - Lesbia NM to Canyon TX

WED 04 JUN 

No great rush today as initiation was expected to be late in New Mexico, but we still had a good 6 hour drive to get from our overnight stay in Decatur (TX) to reach our target of San Jon (NM) via a lunch stop at Amarillo (TX). We bumped into Simon Lee again at Buc-ee's in Amarillo, and arrived in San Jon around 5pm, giving us a couple of hours to chill before initiation, in the company of two Doppler on Wheels. 

Right on cue at 7pm a thunderstorm developed to our southwest, so we drifted west along Historic Route 66 to Lesbia (NM) where we core-punched the storm as it became severe warned, producing copious amounts of hail covering the road. What was particularly cool was the visible transition from heavy rain to hail, with an obvious wall of white in front of us marking the start of the hail. This cell crossed I-40 and we then followed it back east to San Jon and Glenrio (NM), stopping several times to watch its structure and rotation. 

Punching through the hail core near Lesbia (NM)

Doppler on Wheels heading south near Lesbia (NM)

Hail core easing away to the north near Lesbia (NM)

Core punching at Lesbia (NM)

Copious amounts of hail at Lesbia (NM)

Copious amounts of hail at Lesbia (NM)

By now, as it crossed the state lane into Texas and darkness descended, the supercell was making more of a right move and heading ESE'wards, soon to cross I-40 once more. Due to somewhat limited road options we decided to keep ahead of it and drove some distance down I-40 to Vega (TX), then taking the south road towards Hereford (TX). We parked up for a while to watch the constant lightning illuminating the shelf cloud and threatening wall cloud. Other chasers reported a brief tornado around this time, although it was incredibly hard to see due to the darkness and rather ill-defined/ragged nature of the wall cloud.

Supercell near Glenrio

Screengrab from Radarscope of our location (blue circle) relative to the supercell

It was getting late now (10pm onwards) and given it would be very hard to see any tornado in the dark we opted to head NE'wards to Canyon to find somewhere to shelter the car and let the storm move over us. In the minutes preceding the onslaught of rain and hail, a prolific lightning display took place above our heads, with constant flashing illuminating the ominous shelf cloud gradually approaching from the west. Eventually we were hit by the rain and hail, with some pieces as large as ping pong balls with plenty of shredding of vegetation. Wind was not especially strong in the part of the storm that hit us, but a more substantial bowing segment passed to our south did produce a reported 81 mph gust at Tulia. Once the storm had moved through we found a hotel for the night in Canyon, but with several more thunderstorms moving through at times.

Ominous shelf cloud approaches Canyon TX from the west, whilst constant lightning flashes above

Hail at Canyon

Hail at Canyon besides a Quarter coin (24 mm diameter, suggesting hail was >30 mm in diameter)

Large hail falling in Canyon (TX). Credit Chris Bell

Chase Day 7 - SW Oklahoma

TUE 03 JUN

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SPC forecast issued 16:30Z 03 June 2025

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Chase Day 6 - SE Wyoming into NE Colorado

MON 02 JUN 

We left Hays (KS) reasonably early (8am) to get closer to our target in the vicinity of the Nebraska / Wyoming / Colorado border. After lunch in North Platte (NE) we continued to push west, stopping briefly at Big Springs (NE) and Sidney (NE) to reassess the situation. By mid-afternoon a few severe-warned supercell thunderstorms had developed in eastern Wyoming, and we opted to follow the Tail End Charlie at Pine Bluffs (WY) which offered some lovely structure. 

SPC forecast issued 16:30Z 02 June 2025

Congestion on I-80 where the supercell, and associated heavy rain and large hail, crossed the interstate

Road options were rather sparse so it became difficult to keep up with this first storm as it crossed I-80 and headed more SE'wards across the Colorado border. We headed back east to Sidney then south to Sterling (CO), by which point our first storm had all but died but superseded by several new cells that had built further south into Colorado. As we neared Sterling, the supercell nearest us came into view with a ragged wall cloud - this piqued our interest! We nudged west a little, to park up several times and watch this supercell wrapping up and producing yet again some fantastic structure. There were several occasions where it looked like this supercell might produce a tornado (and was appropriately warned), and despite a few spotter reports we never saw anything particularly convincing... we did see a brief gustnado (which appears to have been reported as a "landspout"). The inflow winds significantly cranked up, and we measured 50 mph on a handheld Kestrel, with plenty of lifted dust from the fields.

Tornado warnings were issued for the supercell as it approached and move through Sterling (CO)

Once the supercell approached Sterling it weakened fairly quickly, as numerous additional cells developed in the vicinity. At this point we decided to leave it and undertake a fair few miles to get us slightly closer to tomorrow's target which is many hours away down near the red river (Oklahoma / Texas border).