Tour 3 - Day 2 (Western TX Panhandle, and Eastern NM) - SLIGHT Risk

[MikeUpjohn]

Day 2 saw us start in Lawton, OK after several more hours of overnight storms (some severe) in Lawton and an incredible lightning display plus deluge.

Headed West and South towards Lubbock for a SLGT Risk and 2% tornado risk from supercells that would go up in the untouched warm moist air to the South West, before a cold front came crashing down from the North. AAs soon as cells crossed the cold front, they would become outflow dominant, so headed down to Seminole, TX in the warm juicy air, and then across (and back a timezone) into Hobbs, NM and down towards Jal, NM. As we went under the cold front, the temperature shot up from 68° to 86° in 10 miles or so.

Three or four supercells went up, the Northern one which initially looked good but was flirting with the cold front got pulled into the more Southerly one, which then gained strong rotation and a very low wall cloud. Massive C-G's started raining out the whole time we were watching. It came close to a tornado but the cells started to line out, so we headed out East to a new cell that we had been watching, which was ahead of the line and severe.

Again, this had rotation and a loose wall cloud, with rotation over the road in front of us. Turned up into the storm while it got it's act together and came across some HUGE hail, around 3.75 inches, which ultimately took out two of the windshields and numerous. It was incredibly loud!

Backed off and let the hail go through then went up behind the back of the storm after it had passed, and some some baseball sized hail on the side of the road, and witnessed an incredible hail fog display. The storm complex had now become an MCS but with a huge anvil and mammatus, we left it to roll away and stayed back for sunset mammatus and a lightning display.

Ended the day in Seminole, TX which was now 68° after the cold front went through.

Video of the aftermath of the hail.

 

[MikeUpjohn]

Here is a late addition to Day 2, of the baseball sized hail storm. Watch late on in the video on the right hand side for the windshield breaking.