2023-05-25 REPORTS: NM

[John Farley]

This was the second day of my four-day chase trip in eastern NM. Things were late to get going on this day, but when they did, after 6 p.m., the storms were pretty impressive. Two supercells formed quickly, one just north of Tucumcari and the other one to its northeast, to the northwest of Logan. I was closer to the latter one, so went for that one, northwest of Logan. These were very slow movers; once I got on the Logan storm I did not need to move more than a few miles over a period of perhaps an hour and a half, as the storm produced multiple reports of golfball hail northwest of Logan. This storm developed an impressive meso that looked like a giant top in the sky:



This storm also produced a very interesting feature which I am not entirely sure what to make of. The wall cloud was definitely rotating at the time, and below if a blob of condensation formed near the ground with a dust cloud underneath. Here is a video capture of that:



The condensation then elongated into a long, thin shape and rose about halfway to the base of the rotating wall cloud:



To me, this looked a lot like the ropeout stage of some tornadoes I have seen. Were it not for the fact that it was under a rotating wall cloud and started with a cloud of dust (which I was too far from to ascertain whether it was spinning or just blown into the air), I would probably discount this as scud, but given the location and appearance, I think it could have been a brief tornadic spinup. Here is a link to the entire video segment showing this feature, which lasted for about a minute and a half:

Logan, NM storm feature-possible brief tornado? - YouTube

There were a lot of chasers on this storm, although by the time the best stuff happened, many had relocated to the other storm closer to Tucumcari, which eventually produced hail up to 3.5 inches in diameter and, for the second straight night, a hurricane-force gust at the Tucumcari airport. Anyway, if anyone else was on my storm and saw the feature above, I would be interested in your take (or anyone's thinking based on my pictures and video). Eventually, as the storm drifted slowly south (I don't think it ever moved more than 5 miles an hour), I needed to move. I was originally planning on getting a place to stay in Logan, but since it now looked like this storm was about to hit Logan, I decided to try to skirt the back edge of the other storm closer to Tucumcari and get a place to stay there. I did get into some hail and needed to wait a bit for the storm to pass, but did make it to Tucumcari and got a place to stay. Then more fun arrived, in the form of a third supercell that popped up west of Tucumcari around 9:30 and drifted into town by a little before 10. Luckily the motel I was staying at had a couple of carports which were empty so I was able to move my car to safety in one of them shortly before the intense barrage of hail arrived. Much of it was dime to quarter-sized, but there were definitely a few golfballs mixed in. Here is some video I got of the hailstorm:

Hailstorm in Tucumcari, NM, 5/25/2023 - YouTube

The hail lasted for probably 20-30 minutes and accumulated to a few inches in parts of the parking lot. Here is one stone I used a quarter to measure early in the storm; there were some bigger ones later:



Here is a picture of the accumulated hail in the parking lot:



When time permits, I will write up a fuller report and post it on my Web page along with a link in this thread.

 

[JamesCaruso]

@John Farley , regarding that feature you noted, could it in fact have been scud, despite the cloud of dust? Because to the right leading right into it looks like inflow dust, and it seems to end right there, so maybe that was the point at which the inflow was rising and condensing as it did so ? Just an uneducated guess…

 

[gdlewen]

I have an opinion--based on 1:49 of video and not-having-been-there: I think it is a funnel cloud or weak tornado for the following reasons:

1. It looks like there was plenty of precipitation in the FFD off to the right, and at 0:13 you can see condensation on the ground in the dust cloud and filaments projecting down from the wall cloud. I would expect scud to form as moist air from the FFD rises into the updraft and condenses, but this forms on the ground. You can see scud condensing and rising into the updraft on the left, but this ground-based feature is distinctly different.
2. Even as late as 1:16 that condensation feature remains roughly cylindrical and rises more slowly than other visible scud (again, I refer to scud condensing and rising to the left.).
3. By 1:20 the filament has elongated into an open helix, suggesting rotation.

I suppose the lack of visible ground circulation disqualifies the rigorous classification as a tornado, but then this is hardly a rigorous, however fun, analysis.

(Anyway: this would not be the first time I have tortured a video into representing a tornado or funnel cloud.)

 

[John Farley]

Thanks for the comments. The lower end was moving with the outflow, faster than the wall cloud above, but tornadoes can do that at the bottom if pushed by outflow. NWS ABQ looked at the video and thought a tornado was trying to form, but probably not a ground circulation - dust may have been from RFD. Bottom line is, unless someone closer to it saw it, we will probably never know for sure. An interesting feature, in any case.

 

[John Farley]

One more picture, one I captured off my video:



Full report now posted at: www.johnefarley.com/chase52523.htm