Jay McCoy
EF5
Great idea shane!!
I grew up around severe wx. I remember spending hours with my dad (local meteorologist for 30 yrs) at the tv station while he worked a severe wx event doing cut-ins. I always wanted to go see the storms up close. I started chasing in 85 but didnt catch any tornadoes until the following year. I had no equipment (no such thing as internet back then). We also didnt have things like SPC outlooks. I had to do my forecast on the wx charts that printed out at the tv station. I didnt even have a camera. Just wanted to see the storms. The day was May 7th, 1986. I headed towards the NE Texas panhandle when a large supercell exploded near pampa. I worked ahead of it unitl I stopped south of Canandian near hwy83 and hwy 60. This storm then proceeded to drop 4 beautiful tornadoes including a large truncated cone. I would give anything to have had a camera but can still picture it perfectly in my mind. The only pictures I have ever seen of it were shot by Gene Moore and Tim Marshall which even if I did see them that day I wouldnt have known them to be chasers since that term wasnt used much and we were so few in numbers. (I feel old now).
This wa also the longets chase I had been on up to that time. Canandian is about 100 miles from amarillo and I was only 16 (my folks didnt know I had gone that far).
I grew up around severe wx. I remember spending hours with my dad (local meteorologist for 30 yrs) at the tv station while he worked a severe wx event doing cut-ins. I always wanted to go see the storms up close. I started chasing in 85 but didnt catch any tornadoes until the following year. I had no equipment (no such thing as internet back then). We also didnt have things like SPC outlooks. I had to do my forecast on the wx charts that printed out at the tv station. I didnt even have a camera. Just wanted to see the storms. The day was May 7th, 1986. I headed towards the NE Texas panhandle when a large supercell exploded near pampa. I worked ahead of it unitl I stopped south of Canandian near hwy83 and hwy 60. This storm then proceeded to drop 4 beautiful tornadoes including a large truncated cone. I would give anything to have had a camera but can still picture it perfectly in my mind. The only pictures I have ever seen of it were shot by Gene Moore and Tim Marshall which even if I did see them that day I wouldnt have known them to be chasers since that term wasnt used much and we were so few in numbers. (I feel old now).
This wa also the longets chase I had been on up to that time. Canandian is about 100 miles from amarillo and I was only 16 (my folks didnt know I had gone that far).