ABOVE: Tornado from the first mesocyclone (left) we saw from "Supercell A" at our location near Jericho, TX.
ABOVE: A tornado from the second mesocyclone that we observed from "Supercell A". Photo taken near Jericho.
ABOVE: Vid cap from the primary tornado from the second meso on the northern supercell
ABOVE: The "Good Night, TX" tornado with the southern supercell to our distant southwest from our location near Jericho. I increased the contrast significantly in the above picture...
ABOVE: This tornado rotated cyclonically around the low-level meso... Vid cap taken from a few miles NNW of Alanreed.
VIDEOS
Video from 4/22
Time-lapse video from 4/22
GPS track map available
HERE
We watched the first supercell produce several tornadoes (from at least two mesocyclones) at our location near Jericho, TX, about a mile or two S of I40. As this was going on, I noticed another tornado from a second supercell to our distant southwest; we were watching two tornadoes from two different supercells on the ground at the same time.
The northern supercell, upon crossing I40, took on a very wet, HP look to it, and we were not encouraged by the cooler surface temperatures across the east-central and northeastern panhandle. As such, we let this supercell move away to our northeast as we waited for the southern supercell to approach. This supercell had considerable low-level rotation south of I40, but it was quite chaotic and disorganized; likely not coincidentally, the storm did not feature an observable RFD at this time. Without another supercell to the south, we followed this storm E on I40 as extremely strong low-level rotation developed just ENE of Jericho N of I40. To get a closer view, we headed NNW out of Alanreed, watching a tornado to our NW. We found a good place to stop and observe the storm a few miles NNW of Alanreed, a location from which we watched another strong low-level meso produce at least a couple of tornadoes. Immediately before we left (to avoid getting munched), the meso looked more like a tornado, with at least a couple of well-defined, fully-condensed vortices rotating around the periphery of the rotation.
By this time, convection nearby had increased in spatial extent, and we weren't very optimistic about the prospects for discrete convection. After turning back to the south to avoid being overtaken by the heavy precip, then, we decided to target the supercell to the W of Paducah, TX. We eventually got a view of this supercell at our location near Swearingen (NE of Paducah), but darkness, the HP nature of the storm, and some bad terrain resulted in our inability to see much of the storm. With sun having set, we decided to call off the chase.
I'm not sure how arrive at a "tornado count" for this chase, since we saw several vortices that occurred along the periphery of the larger low-level mesocyclones. I'll say we have 6 "quality" tornadoes, with a couple more condensed vortices that I won't label as distinct "tornadoes". Of course, this is a minor thing anyway... *shrug*
