(Updated Video)4/23 Texas Chase Report

Link to video courtesy of my chase partner, Jon Merage.


A frustrating day. We woke up in Clayton, NM after driving through the night. We slept in when we should have been on the road at 8 am heading south down to I-20. We had lunch at Chili's and wasted even more time. We werent counting on the main round of storms firing so early after the grunge-fest moved out so we were planning on a 6 or 7 p.m. initiation. The storms didnt wait and there was tornadoes on the ground as we were coming through Lubbock. We blasted south to catch the LaMesa storm. We must have missed the tube by only a few minutes judging by the incredible structure and severe rotation.


This is the view we got as we emerged from a precision core-punch into the middle of the hook. We only encountered quarter sized hail as GR2 was estimating 3.25 inch hail sizes.

This thing had amazing structure.

The LaMeso!!
I only managed snapshots on this chase due to driving and lots of rain.

Strong rotation almost overhead.

Pretty awesome looking storm in its decaying stages (note the dual level inflow).



Nice little sunset storm as we headed back north to our south KS target for the next day. I would have stopped and tripoded but this thing refused to put out any CG's

The next day yeilded no pictures but only video. Jon Merage is reviewing the video to verify if we saw the tornado near Bogue, KS. It looked like a nice tube for sure but we are not certain that it was on the ground due to hills and no line of sight. We were also late to this storm as we missed the spectacular daytime structure while holding out on our south target near Medicine Lodge, KS. It was a bad call but we couldnt convince our selves that the NW, KS storm would produce based on low surface dews and weak surface winds. The storm of course moved into better air and turned into a monster. Im looking forward to more successful chases in the near future.

Sunday 3/30/08 Storm Shots!!!

Well, what can I say? It was an awesome first chase of the year. Only a few possible brief tornadic circulations were observed but we will have to check the video. Overall, it was a fantastic trip for photography, at least the 30th anyway. Our targeting was precise and our choices were strong. The 31st was a really frustrating day and the 15% hatched tornado risk did not verify. We were right infront of the only tornado reported in Oklahoma but could not verify a touchdown due to poor visibility through trees and hills although witnessing damage in the area. I will have pix from that up later. Im going to skip a lengthy chase report here. These shots are in no particular order.


Killer Sunset with a mini LP Supercell in the distance.

This is the main supercell shortly after initiation.

This is well after dark here shortly before the cell was tornado warned as an increasing low level jet strengthened the storm. We flirted with several supercells in the area after dark.

The first supercell beginning to go outlow dominant

Several of our friends including the Carlsons, and Tony Laubach, sampled this core as we were listening to the hail roar from a safe distance.