We watched the whole thing unfold from 1 mile south of South Plains at the intersection of 207 and FM 2286. We didn't even see the tornado until it was almost on South Plains because of the extremely low contrast from that angle and attendant meaty hook.
With our position we had [purposefully] stayed south and east of the PRECIP (as much as possible), not just hail - since 80% of the roads in that area are unpaved and we didn't want to be left with a wet clay road as our only east escape route. We knew a BUNCH of folks were up on 207 right in the path since we had seen the huge caravans only 20 minutes before as we observed the "first" of the two cells. When we saw the footage from NE of the meso, we were a bit frustrated - it looked like a totally different tornado, and a much more stellar one at that! Through the siren song of high quality video, I began questioning my chase tactics and positioning ideals. I learned in my chase upbringing to always be East or SE of the meso, certainly not N. All weekend I questioned if that a bogus assumption, and if I needed to be where many others were.
However, after seeing all the reports of the aftermath of those north of the tornado and going back to the site and assessing where we were in relation to paved road options and damage paths (we live in LBB, so it's not far), I feel much better and feel that we played it nicely. In surveying the damage, there was a secondary area of power poles down, assumingly due to the RFD, but it was only about 0.5 miles south of the torando path, and still north of the town of South Plains. In retrospect the only thing I would have done differently is gone to the south "city limit" of South Plains and watched from there, 0.7 miles from the tornado rather than 1.7. In response to a previous post, we weren't quite "5 miles" SE of the tornado, but far enough to perhaps be considered overly cautious which I believe was the spirit of the remark. We saw the tornado, had a good escape route, kept our windshield, and were able to continue on to see the storms down by Lubbock on our way home and not have to contact the Gecko the next morning. In addition, our slightly greater distance acted as a cushion that accounted for any unexpected deviations in storm or tornado track. So I think fun can be had while hedging on the side of what some may consider unneccesary caution.
Just my 2 cents, I'm glad everyone was mosty okay and did such a good job of avoiding the torando's path once they realized they were pinned north.
... Sometimes I would rather be lucky
