High Plains Drifter

June 4th was the last chase day of a 3-day short trip to New Mexico before I set off for Nevada for my long-awaited bowling trip.  I once again began the day in Clayton (at the Days Inn this time) with a couple of targets in mind.  My main area of interest was actually near the I-25 corridor from Raton to Springer to Las Vegas where it appeared the best juxtaposition of deep layer shear and instability would exist.  Another area that kind of caught my eye was in the TX Panhandle, however low level winds were weak with really not much help from any terrain (other than Caprock escarpment).  I knew for sure there would be storms in my primary target area and was more unsure about the TX Panhandle area, thus I decided on heading west.

I left Clayton around 10:30am MDT and drove towards Raton on Hwy 64.  I reached Clayton to find a bunch of disorganized storms with little interest.  After filing up gas and considering my options, I finally decided to head south on I-25 from Raton to get ahead of a storm that had indications of marginally severe hail to the southwest of Raton.  This was around 12:30pm.  I pulled off briefly at an interchange to observe and take a photo of this storm, but it was really of little interest.  Soon, however, another storm west of this one was looking better on radar, and visually I could see a rain free base off in the distant west.  I continued south to the Cimarron exit.  Between 1:15 and 1:30pm, this storm was looking quite interesting to my northwest as I was traveling slowly west on state Hwy 58.  This is the first time I’ve chased west of I-25!  Two distinct updraft bases consolidated to form one large dominant updraft… a good sign for sustained future storm strength.  I was in a perfect position between Maxwell and Springer just west of I-25 with this new storm moving southeast towards me.  I shot photos through about 2:00pm until the storm was approaching too close and I headed back to I-25 to Springer.  The storm was well-developed now both visually and on radar with a very dark, large rain-free base and a nebulous lowering… with the Sangre de Cristo mountains as a backdrop!  The photography was just fantastic.  The storm was at its greatest intensity, with radar-indicated mesocyclone, when I was observing it to the west-northwest from a few miles west of Springer shortly before 2:30pm MDT.  The structure of the supercell was very clean with great contrast, a beautiful forward-flank precipitation core well-separated from the best updraft region and the mountains in the background — certainly my best supercell photography opportunity for me so far in 2007.  The storm continued southeast and I had to stay out ahead of it, so I dropped south a few more miles.  When I pulled off again, the storm structure was not looking nearly as good anymore, and I had a decision to make — whether to keep following this activity or to break off and head back east in the general direction of back home.  I basically achieved what I hoped to on this chase, so I was definitely content on just heading back home.  Back to Clayton it was.

When I got back to Clayton, I grabbed a quick bite to eat and refueled.  I noticed new storms forming to my north on radar and visually.  It would be tough to not chase this since this was basically moving towards the general direction of Clayton.  I drove back northwest from Clayton on Hwy 64 a few miles and noticed a brilliant rainbow on the backside of a weak storm that just recently glanced Clayton.  I stopped along Hwy 64 for numerous photos of this amazing sight.  The rainbow was fairly low on the horizon but the backside of the storm was quite photogenic.  This was pretty much icing on the cake!  A small LP storm to my north began to look more interesting so I headed north from Mt. Dora on a county road to photograph this little storm… again very picturesque.  I then continued east to follow this small storm before it began to dissipate.  Finally, before sunset, another storm farther east was somewhat photogenic as I approached Boise City and this would pretty much conclude my chase.  I had some dinner here in Boise City before I began my trek back home to Dodge City.  This was definitely one of my favorite New Mexico chases!!

Supercell storm structure west of Springer, NM with Sangre de Cristo mountains in the background:

Dissipating storm with rainbow looking east towards Clayton, NM:

This was a chase day where two key "decision point" circumstances arose… both of which the decision I made ended up being very good.  First of all, I left Clayton, NM this morning with my target being way to the south… about a 4.5 hour drive to near Midland as it appeared the best juxtaposition of CAPE/instability/shear was going to be in this area coinciding with a boundary as well.  Even when I left, I realized that I was going to miss out on another "Raton Mesa" opportunity as I figured storms would form there once again between Raton and Clayton with adequate shear in place for interesting storms.  Nevertheless, I left about 10am CDT to go south.  I stopped at the town of Channing and looked over the latest data… since the Raton Mesa area was still nagging at my brain…something about this area in Northeast NM that I really love. After mulling it over more… I decided then to continue south and not turn around.  I then stopped again at Hereford… which is about 130 miles south-southeast of Clayton.  I perused data again… more interrogation of the NAM and RUC models, satellite imagery, surface obs/tendencies.  I finally came to the conclusion that, okay, maybe heading this far south was not the best idea… as I was having a very hard time thinking there would be any better photogenic storms down there then there could be along the Raton Mesa area.  It also looked like things were going to take shape much farther south… as far as any tornado threat would go.  It was about 12:20pm or so when I turned around… it was a 260 mile round-trip waste of gas money, but that’s storm chasing.

This was turning point #1.  By the time I reached Dalhart, storms were already forming northwest of Clayton and this would be the area I would target.  After refueling and getting a bite to eat, I continued north on a road (Hwy 370) north of Clayton with beautiful landscape and storms to my northwest through southwest.  The storm of most interest to me was to the northwest and I continued north to stay ahead of it.  I meandered east on a county road watching this storm to my immediate northwest take on good structure.  The storm had a large "horseshoe" updraft base and in time continued to look more supercellular in appearance.  Some of the mammatus overhead was becoming more defined as well.  At its best, the structure of the storm revealed multiple-tiered structure at its front flank with nice, clean contrast.  I eventually made it into adjacent far western OK Panhandle west of Wheeless.  Another storm to the northeast of this primary storm was getting its act together as well… and eventually I watched this amazing inflow band develop just to my northeast.  This thing stretched for miles and miles… fantastic!  This inflow band eventually became part of the new storm updraft to my immediate north… just to the northwest of Wheeless, OK.  For a time I had two adjacent storm updrafts that I was able to get in one photo.  In time, though, the structure was becoming more shrouded in rain.  I eventually stopped photographing this storm and headed back south to US-56 at Felt, OK.  I was able to re-establish internet connection to see how this was looking on radar… and I meandered west towards Clayton where I stopped for awhile to figure out what I wanted to do next.

Turning point #2.  Go home or continue chasing/leave option open for chasing tomorrow?  Basically, spend more money on another night’s motel room or not was my main decision.  After mulling this over for about 15 minutes, I decided to head back into Clayton.  This ended up being a wise, wise move.  I noticed new storms forming along a northwest-southeast orientation to the northwest of Clayton, and I figured that there might be some photo ops to the southwest of these storms where there wasn’t any rain.  I drove northwest on US-64 towards Mt. Dora and Des Moines, NM just to see "what up".  Well, eventually, even newer storms were forming immediately west of this previously mentioned new stuff and was taking a track towards Des Moines… so I continued to get closer… eventually seeing a rain-free base to the northwest.

I approached this area fast, eventually getting close enough to find a pull-off on a county road (Weatherly Road).  I happened to be adjacent a rail-road track which proved to be a very interesting photography subject with the storm.  The storm began to take a more interesting shape with a curved updraft region just south of the heavy precip… almost like a hybrid HP supercell/shelf cloud type structure.  What was most interesting, however, was what was going on immediately east of this "shelf cloud" looking updraft region.  Low cloud material was streaming west to east…while scud tags/updraft material from the primary updraft was rotating in a broad cyclonic sense from west to east.  A forward flank meso was developing right in front of me to the immediate north, and it was taking shape fast!  A rear-flank downdraft feature developed as well with rotation increasing quite a bit!  Holy cow, I wasn’t expecting this!  The rotation eventually came to a point that I thought I might get really, really lucky and perhaps spin up a brief tornado from this circulation!  Eventually, a nubby looking nascent funnel cloud did develop from the center of this circulation, however, but unfortunately the air was too chilly from the outflow of this storm such that it was overwhelming this circulation and the tornadic threat waned fairly quickly.  It was great watching this all unfold in just a few minutes time.  I backtracked to the southeast… then went west and south on a county road from Mt. Dora to stay ahead of the now outflow-dominant storm.  I was able to get a few more decent photos of the storm during this time, until the cold outflow of the storm pretty much took care of the photogenic aspects of it.  I reached Hwy 56 and made it back to Clayton where I shacked up for the night at the Days Inn and had a nice dinner and beer at the Eklund Saloon.  Very fun chase!

Storm takes on supercell characteristics about 15 miles north of Clayton, NM 

Near the New Mexico border with the Oklahoma Panhandle to the north-northeast of Clayton

Beautiful inflow bands streaming into an updraft west of Wheeless, OK

Fairly strong rotation with a nascent funnel cloud looking up the railroad tracks near Des Moines, NM

Supercell structure with a faint funnel cloud looking to the north near Des Moines, NM

June 2nd was the first day of at least two chasing in NM/TX before I leave on the 6th for Reno, NV for the bowling trip I’m going on.  The night before I spent in Wichita partying with my good chaser friends, which was real fun.  I left Wichita about 8:15am or so and got back to Dodge around 10:45.. made a quick and dirty forecast, packed a few things and set out around Noon.  I made the decision to go ahead and reserve a motel room in Clayton ahead of time… and I arrived in Clayton about the time storms were going up just north of there.  I was in touch with Matt Crowther through the afternoon… and his original idea was to head up towards the Clayton area as well — however it ended up that an east-west boundary of towering Cumulus developed farther south in the Plainview-Dimmitt area and Matt stayed down there… while I stayed up around Clayton.  A storm north of Clayton looked promising for awhile as it moved due south over Clayton.  In time, however, this storm and another immediately east of it began to "line out" and become less interesting.  I was then suckered to development farther to the west per radar and visual of a distant large base.  Instead of busting south to try and catch the Dimmitt storm (I hate chasing storms that are seemingly moving away from me and from the north), I blasted west in no-man’s-land New Mexico to Mosquero.  There were several isolated marginal supercells to my southwest, west southwest, and a couple to my northwest.  The storms to my northwest unfortunately shriveled and died, but one of them looked fairly picturesque north of Mosquero — a narrow "chimney" looking updraft with a little bit of a flared base.  Storms farther to my southwest showed visual signs of more "mass" to them, however my eyes were now drawn to my distant northeast where a supercell was diving south-southeast out of far SE CO taking aim on Boise City.  I could see the tremendous convection near the horizon, sort of masked a little bit by junky storms between me and it. 

I backtracked east along #102 to get back to about 30 S Clayton.  When I got back to this point at the intersection of 402, I had to make another decision.  Storms were developing right on top of me now with photogenic high base to it.  I briefly went north (so that I could go east again to vector myself towards the Boise City storm), but quickly reconsidered and headed back south to play with this newly organized storm basically just to my immediate west.  This was a good decision as this storm revealed real photogenic updraft structure with a nice separate precipitation shaft to the immediate north of the base.  The back lighting was pretty good, although quite harsh… but the golden hues were superb.  It made me feel a little better about missing out on the "storm of the day" near Dimmitt, TX.  This storm was short-lived though, as I got closer to Nara Visa… at which time it was getting late into the evening.  I decided to make one last run for the Boise City storm as it was still holding together at around 8:45pm.  I got to Dalhart, TX and headed north with barely enough light left… but by the time I got there, the storm really went downhill quickly.  Oh well.  After playing with this for a little bit, I headed back to Clayton for the night.  Below are a few photos from the day:

 Storm #1:  ~ 20 miles south of Clayton

 Storm #2:  ~ 20 miles north of Mosquero, NM

 Storm #3:  ~ 15 miles northwest of Nara Visa, NM

 Storm #3:  ~ 15 miles northwest of Nara Visa, NM

 Storm #4 (as it died):  ~ 15 miles north of Dalhart, TX