May 8 we went out in search of what Mother Nature could provide. Compared to what it was ten years ago (see 2003), it was not the severe weather outbreak it could have been. Even still, we drove through Lawton, Altus, and Hollis, Oklahoma before heading into the open expanses of the Texas Panhandle. We first sat north of Childress and watched a supercell form and then die in northern Hall County. This storm was not without some fanfare as it did carry a severe thunderstorm warning from NWS Amarillo for the duration of its life cycle. It also produced large hail and some very interesting structure. In the picture below, there appears to be a cone tornado under the rain-free base of a large rotating thunderstorm. But you can’t always judge a book by its cover. We had been on this cell for some time already and had noted several instances of rising scud clouds that appeared from our vantage point to be in contact with both the cloud and the ground. What looks like a tornado in this picture is actually a harmless condensed area of rising air. It takes a lot of storm chasing experience to properly discern what’s what out there, and even very seasoned storm spotters and chasers can occasionally be fooled. We knew what we were looking at did not report this as a tornado.
The “fakenado” in Hall County, TX
We (and a bevvy of other chasers) watched this storm for some time, as it was the most dominant supercell in the area. But out of thin air, the storm almost completely dissipated. We dropped further south on Highway 83 towards Paducah, Texas and another developing supercell. We got there with a good visual on the back side of this rotating cell, witnessing a small lowering and some larger hail on the side of the highway just outside city limits. This wasn’t a day for tornadoes, but there were certainly some interesting storms out there!
Storm structure near Paducah, TX
Fragmented pieces of a baseball-size hailstone near Paducah, TX
