I left Dodge around 11:30 am and set off to Boise City, OK. High based storms formed over the Raton Mesa early in the afternoon and rolled east to the TX-OK-NM tri-border northeast of Clayton. I actually intercepted this stuff before the outflow did it’s number to this whole area given dewpoints in the upper 30s or so. It was at that point that I had to seriously re-consider the rest of this chase as far as logistics were concerned. It was about 4:30pm and hires sat suggested turkey towers way down south near Plainview. Other towering Cu were going up north of this area on the retreating warm front that extended northwest to southeast across the southern TX Panhandle. The best convergence…albeit weak…was setting up just southwest of Amarillo (AMA). Theta-E nose was point right up towards Palo Duro S.P. just southeast of AMA. Knowing that the upper jet was digging southeast into this area… this was now my target… about 150 mile drive from where I was watching those garbage storms east of Clayton. Calculating my route, I could get down there by 6:30 or so. Thank god I had cell internet access to keep a close eye on the TX Panhandle obs and 1km vis, otherwise, I would have likely been completely lost with so much Cu development.
I got to AMA with convective initiation occurring to my south-southwest as well as just northeast of the AMA metro, refueled in Claude, and plotted a track to the southern-most storm of this AMA-area stuff. I dropped south from Claude through the Palo Duro Canyon…watching a nice looking left-split approach me just south of Claude. I continued south towards the right-split near Wayside. Storms were also continuing to organize back to the north near where I originally was on the northeast side of Amarillo. NWS AMA dis-continued the warning for awhile with the Wayside storm, as it did in fact look a little less interesting on radar… but the supercell was just in a re-organizing stage as it turned out. Driving through the canyon, I encountered nickel size hail about 7 NE Wayside. I finally got south of the forward flank precip core in the southern portion of the canyon with a spectaular view to the immediate northeast overlooking the incredible canyon terrain — there was a marked distinction between the precip core and the updraft of the storm.
This storm was moving due east initially but began to right turn once it got into far southeast Armstrong Co. There are zero road options east unless you go south to Silverton. Since the storm was now right moving with a slight south component to it… this wasn’t that big of a deal. I was rewarded with spectacular Cb structure (1 2) looking 10-15 miles northeast. At the same time, there were two more supercells off to my distant southeast… a left and right split it appeared. I stopped on Hwy 207 at Tule Creek northwest of Silverton to get some more Cb structure shots with some of the beautiful terrain in this canyon area around the Mackenzie Reservoir. Jim Leonard and company (1 2) passed me at this point… he thought I was photographing some deer 
They would be the only other chasers I would encounter on this chase.
I continued east on Hwy 256 with just enough of a cell signal to download a radar image about every 10 or 15 minutes. A meso was being indicated just southwest of Brice which was about 12 miles to my northeast. My road was now going northeast, but the storm was now moving more southeast… so I had to jump on Hwy 70 and head to Turkey to stay removed enough from this beastie and not get munched by this now full-fledged mature supercell. I stopped periodically along Hwy 70 to shoot Cb supercell structure to my northeast. The most dangerous portion of this storm was now in central Hall County approaching Parnell. The sun was now setting — providing some brilliant orange and pink hues. I photographed from a stopping point just on the northwest side of Turkey just after sunset to get these colors. I was now amidst the photographer’s “magic hour” and the supercell to my northeast was now just a monster! A cumuliform backsheared anvil was just one of the amazing characteristics of this storm that revealed its furocity — spawning numerous reports of baseball hail apparently in the Parnell to Estelline areas.
I hopped on Ranch 656 in order to remain in an optimal viewing position to the supercell updraft’s southwest. I stopped about 3 miles outside of Turkey around 8:45 and setup the tripod. Intra-cloud and cloud-to-cloud lightning was constant. The sight was just amazing; a convective cathedral with just incredible visibility. It made photography very easy, to say the least. I remained at this location for a good 20 minutes (1 2 3)… then continued east-southeast on 656 for another 15 minutes before stopping again to photograph long exposure structure with the in-cloud/cloud to cloud lightning. A near full moon provided just enough ambient light that leaving the shutter open for a good half a minute allowed the resultant image appear as if it was still early twilight. I sat at this location for probably a half hour, just soaking it all in. It was during this time that Childress got hit… so I was now some 30 miles west-southwest of the storm as it continued to move east.
Shortly after 9:30 I continued east to Northfield and through Tell…eventually taking me into Childress so I could get back on a major highway. I rolled into Childress to find the power out… some sign damage at the intersection, a leaned over power pole… and a tree across the south-bound lane of Hwy 83.
After this encounter, I began my trek home… along the way stopping a couple times for more long exposure photo opportunities taking advantage of the full moon. What luck to get a full moon to provide some light on the clouds! Did some artistic convective cloud motion blur stuff with 30-60 second time exposures… which turned out fairly well (1 2).
I drove back to Dodge in a chilly stratiform rain getting back home around 4 am — an extremely rewarding chase with exactly the outcome I was hoping for!!
http://www.underthemeso.com/gallery2/stormchase/chase06/2006may09/
Mike Umscheid
April 22nd wasn’t exactly the most exciting chase of my life, but I didn’t expect to see truly spectacular storms either. I decided to chase because it was during my 3-day weekend, and the setup appeared marginally favorable for sustained supercell thunderstorms rolling off the high terrain of eastern New Mexico into moist, unstable air in West Texas. I departed Dodge City around 8:30am or so for a target around Clovis. I was banking on initiation of storms near the Tucumcari-Clovis areas or the far southwestern Texas Panhandle by late afternoon. I arrived in Clovis around mid-afternoon only to find south-southwesterly winds at the surface and dewpoints in the 30s. Convergence was weak at best in this area and the flow certainly wasn’t of upslope component — which was rather frustrating. I had to make a decision at this point whether to completely call this chase a bust and head back home empty-handed… or continue on to the south where there was much better low level forcing in southeastern New Mexico to the northeast of Roswell.
