4/20/10 Reports: TX

[J Blanscet]

After not thinking much was going to happen until later this week, my partner and I ventured out just west of Amarillo, TX to chase a very nice cell that had just blown through Boys Ranch. We headed west out of Amarillo and set up about 5 miles to the west of Bushland, Tx just off I-40. We got some very nice shots of the huge wall cloud that had formed.

Once the storm was getting close to us, we decided to move a little further to the East and set up again. The rotation became VERY intense and the storm spit out an absolutely beautiful tornado approximately 1/2 mile to our SW. It was only on the ground for about two minutes, but it was the best two minutes of my chasing history.

The tornado lifted and briefly touched down again about five minutes later. We watched the rotation continue until it became obscured by heavy rain and hail ranging from dimes to quarters.

Perhaps my partner can post some photos since they were all shot with his equipment.

 

[brandongreen]

 

[Jay McCoy]

Beautiful shots Brandon.

I also caught this great tornado and the 2nd one that dropped WNW of Canyon as it rainwrapped. I unfortunately was on duty so I was stationed about 5 miles east of the rotation on I-40 so my video isnt near as close as Brandons and I was busy on the radio etc.. so only caught a bit of video and no pics but will upload what I can soon.

This cell was actually a combination of 2 cells that merged.. one moving SE and a small one moving NE that when it merged on the south side of the larger cell cuased the rotation to increase dramatically and then it became a right mover and dropped due south. I thknk the merger it was enhanced the SRH and made this one drop the tornado. Soon as they merged it bacame a large barberpoled cell with a very large well defined base and solid rotation for almost an hr. I told my captain at about 615 it was probably going to drop a tornado..it just had that look and feel and it continually showed a TVS on radar. Even though this was a large cone it didnt appear to be very strong.. I am guessing maybe an f1. I didnt expect any kind of dirt swirling since we have had soo much rain here lately.. that area had 3"+ the past week.

Nice to catch this on a "see text" 5% and no watch and even the severe thunderstorm had expired.. this storm had no warning of any kind on it when it produced.

 

[terra seright]

Oh The Irony!

We were on the Bushland storm, parked on a dirt road that went into farm property, off the main road. There were two vehicles that parked on Bushland Road behind us. Along came a terrified woman who was watching the tornado while driving, almost hit the two cars, swerved to miss them, and clipped our truck from the back side. We were both out of the vehicle. She missed me by about 10 feet, and could have hit my Husband with our truck and hers too.

But the tornado was soooo pretty! And it's our first photogenic tornado, Yaaay!

BTW those pix were all taken on my Droid. We had been to Albuquerque last week and i had exhausted the battery on my camera, and remembered to charge it yesterday afternoon. Droid did well taking pix in a pinch!

 

[Marcus Diaz]

If anyone knows Amarillo, you know where Gene Messer Ford is at. Well that's where I work, and I had a great visual of the storm as it evolved back and forth between LP and HP. I finally couldn't stand it, grabbed the shop's little digital camera, and headed west. I ended up under the Adkinson Rd overpass along I-40. I sat there for about 10 minutes talking with some other guys when the rotation began to really get it. It tightened up and dropped a cone funnel just on the other side of the highway. It came down as a small needle but quickly morphed into a full cone tornado. It was on the ground for about 2 minutes before lifting. I drove just a little to the west basically sitting next to the circulation. There was a large bowl funnel/circulation still sitting in the same spot. Couple minutes later some small vortices spun up under the circulation, which only last 5-10 seconds. About this time I was getting pounded with quarter-golfball sized hail. I decided to punch through the RFD a couple miles to the west and let the main hailcore pass over the highway. I then made my way back to Amarillo, drove around the loop, and back on I-27 south. I got to Canyon and could see a clear base to the west. It eventually got rain wrapped and the storm became junk. Honestly, this was a great surprise to happen yesterday, especially when i wasn't expecting to chase at all.


My photos for this chase/jog westward are on here:

http://www.mesoextreme.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=8792110

 

[Wesley Luginbyhl]

5 minutes would have made all the difference in the world, but atleast I saw the tornado. I probably wouldnt have even known about the storm if Marcus hadnt sent me a text. It took me about 30 minutes to move all my gear into my Jeep and hit the road from Borger. I didnt even get a camera out till about 4 minutes after the consenation funnel had lifted - which is the photo below. The second picture is of the structure between Amarillo and Canyon on the next cycle. It really was too bad so much precip kept filling in every time the storm really got going. Could have been an incredible show. Instead I ended with 40 pictures and 30 seconds of video for the day.