JamesCaruso
Staff member
SPC called today a “complex convective scenario” in one of the morning outlooks. We played the outflow boundary around Midland. Began the day in Lubbock, stopped in Lamesa to re-evaluate, continued on to Midland, then headed to Andrews where a storm was moving SE into the county from NM. This storm became a huge outflow-dominant HP. My son, on his second chase day, had his first experience with some hail. We stayed out ahead of it, playing the cat and mouse game typical with outflow-dominant HPs. A large storm, which soon lost any clear structure, organization or focal point. It did produce a nice shelf cloud and had some of those great turquoise hues. It briefly had a TOR warning, which I couldn't understand, as it was clearly outflow-dominant. I had trouble even finding any rotation on the velocity image.
I was on the southern flank, but wanted to get its east, because there was an east wind at the nearest station to its east. In trying to do so, we ran into a lot of traffic and flooding in Midland. I missed a turn, which was not an easy mistake to correct, given all the traffic and flooding. We lost a lot of time trying to get to the loop that would bring us south of Midland and onto I-20. By then, I-20 was already over-run by the storm, so that route would no longer work. With the time lost, the lack of structure, and a newly-issued SPC MSD talking about evolution into an MCS with no mention of tornado potential, I decided to bail. Perhaps there was a bit of complacency, after Morton the day before - you know, the feeling that there was no way today was going to turn out better than yesterday… This being my son‘s first trip to this part of the country and first chase vacation - and it is a *vacation* too, in which storms are the primary, but not the only, consideration - I wanted to take him to a great restaurant in Odessa called the Cork & Pig.
Heading west on I-20 toward Odessa, I went ballistic when I saw a tornado warning issued on the eastern flank, and a great velocity signature, near Garden City, Texas! Ugh!!! Will I never learn not to give up, not to worry about a nice dinner, and not be influenced by SPC MSDs?!? Or at least stop looking at radar once I've called the chase?!? Sure enough, there was a confirmed EF-2 tornado just west of Garden City… Well, looking on the bright side, this is part of chasing, and so I was glad for my son to experience the second-guessing and consequences of bad decision-making... And we did have a great dinner together, and also a very good lunch in the same area the next day…



I was on the southern flank, but wanted to get its east, because there was an east wind at the nearest station to its east. In trying to do so, we ran into a lot of traffic and flooding in Midland. I missed a turn, which was not an easy mistake to correct, given all the traffic and flooding. We lost a lot of time trying to get to the loop that would bring us south of Midland and onto I-20. By then, I-20 was already over-run by the storm, so that route would no longer work. With the time lost, the lack of structure, and a newly-issued SPC MSD talking about evolution into an MCS with no mention of tornado potential, I decided to bail. Perhaps there was a bit of complacency, after Morton the day before - you know, the feeling that there was no way today was going to turn out better than yesterday… This being my son‘s first trip to this part of the country and first chase vacation - and it is a *vacation* too, in which storms are the primary, but not the only, consideration - I wanted to take him to a great restaurant in Odessa called the Cork & Pig.
Heading west on I-20 toward Odessa, I went ballistic when I saw a tornado warning issued on the eastern flank, and a great velocity signature, near Garden City, Texas! Ugh!!! Will I never learn not to give up, not to worry about a nice dinner, and not be influenced by SPC MSDs?!? Or at least stop looking at radar once I've called the chase?!? Sure enough, there was a confirmed EF-2 tornado just west of Garden City… Well, looking on the bright side, this is part of chasing, and so I was glad for my son to experience the second-guessing and consequences of bad decision-making... And we did have a great dinner together, and also a very good lunch in the same area the next day…



