5/9/05 REPORTS: Northern Hill Country Texas

[Derek Deroche]

Blake Michaleski, Cory Bovard, and I targeted the dryline from BWD to AQO. We had a late start on the day due to equipment problems. The first storm initiated just south of AQO around 21Z. This put us a little behind this storm, however, new convection quickly fired in moist, unstable airmass coupled with remnant surface boundaries. We drove through Llano, TX encountering a little pea sized hail and decided to take a south road just east of the town. Once south, we heard reports of softball sized hail 8 miles west of LLano. Then came the decision to take a Co. road option west. This took us on a great field trip to observe some Hill Country livestock. After about 20 minutes of Co roads, we came to a stop due to a creek washing over the road with about 2 feet of water across the pass. We decided to turn around and don't drown at that point and took the 20 minute trip back up the Co roads. So, back in LLano, which wasn't too bad considering the storms were nearly stationary, we took a paved road southwest out of the town. This time law enforcement stopped us to turn around don't drown as another creek was across the paved road. So, back into LLano we tried to cross the creek a littel further west. But again the water was across the road...about mid shin high. At this point, the sun was getting low allowing for great structure shots of the storm. We ended the day just east of Mason, TX as the storms began dissipating with the loss of daytime heating.

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