• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

2022-05-24 REPORTS: TX/NM

JamesCaruso

Staff member
Joined
Jul 5, 2009
Messages
1,860
Location
Newtown, Pennsylvania
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… 😏

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