Wish I had the time earlier this year and saved myself the trouble
My story is much the same as everyone else, with a few exceptions. I had a great seat for the first two tornadoes out of "Storm A". As "Storm A" finished up near I-40, it continued NE towards Mobeetie. I was on the same road north of Alanreed with the other 500 cars and had the meso from "Storm A" approaching from the west. Most people stayed put or bailed south, but myself and two other vehicles continued north into the core in an attempt to punch out east of the storm north of McLean on 273. We emerged from the core just on the north side of the meso. In one of the most surreal scenes I have ever witnessed while chasing, the wall cloud was literally right off of the ground. I'm 6'2" and pretty sure with a little effort, I could have reached up and touched the underside of this thing. I could see it rotating all around me and the clouds were forming and lifting off of the ground. I punched out of the front side of the wall cloud and got ahead of this storm by almost a mile and took the following pano.
Here is a crop of that pano with a shot of the road. You can see that there wasn't much room to even tell if there was anything going on under there or not:
I watched this continue to rotate off to the NE towards Mobeetie and it retained pretty decent structure the whole time it was within my view. I then moved back south towards McLean when the newer tornado reports began coming in. I shot this pano below around the time Aaron Dooley reported something rather large going on inside this rain-wrapped meso north of Alanreed. I've seen his vid-cap, and it doesn't surprise me that something wicked was going on inside there. I'd love to see the whole video. Anyway, here is what it looked like a few miles to the NE of his location looking back to the WSW.
That was pretty much the end of the show for me. Great roadtrip and came away with some good stuff.
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.
