Date: May 23, 2019
Time: 3:50 - 9:00 PM CDT
Place: Lubbock, Idalou, TX
Distance: 480 mi (411 positioning, 42 chasing, 27 to hotel)
Camera: T3i, GoPros5 & 7, Karma, Note5, Note9
Warnings: SVR, TOR
Rating: S5

Pre-Chase

9:25 AM - 12:25 PM CDT: There's a ubiquitous storm chaser nightmare. A beautiful supercell cranks up. The light is perfect. A spectacular tornado drops. And yet, your camera is missing... or out of batteries... or for some reason you can't work the focus. It's always something. Well, today I lived the inverse of that bad dream. We had our closest tornado intercept to date. All cameras were rolling. Yet if you browse today's thumbnails, you might wonder where all the epic photos are. Here's the story.

Today's ingredients actually remind me a lot of our May 7th chase with Corbin earlier this month -- similar look and location. The Texas panhandle is the obvious focus with a dryline to the west and cool air to the north bounding the target area. Just like May 7th, an ejecting western trough is overspreading great flow overtop quality moisture. Parameters look primed, I just wish we could get rid of this persistent Mexican wildfire smoke!

12:25 - 4:40 PM CDT: After leaving Enid, we made good time to our initial hedging location of Shamrock, TX -- easy access SW, W, or NE depending on storm evolution. But first, a pre-chase work chore to knock out: a 2-hour analytics demo for a potential customer. Thankfully, our new cell booster performed flawlessly as I demoed from the glamorous Shamrock McDonald's parking lot (Toni stuck and very bored inside the McDs). Throughout the entire demo, I fretted early initiation would put us out of position before the chase even started, but thankfully storms held off. Demo done!

At 3PM, we headed west on I-40 as an obvious boundary laid just east of Amarillo, a clear go-hear-stupid signal. Still antsy after being stuck in Shamrock for 2 hours, I wanted to be closer to initial action. Between Alanreed and Groom, we again pulled off to assess the forecast. Consistent with the earlier MCD, shear looked slightly better to the north, but also offered higher possibility of merging, upscale growth. Anywhere a storm could latch onto the boundary, though, had great parameters to work with. And by 4:40, cells were maturing all around Amarillo. Time to close in!

The Chase

4:40 - 7:15 PM CDT: It only took few minutes before we could glimpse storms on the horizon. Unfortunately, radar told a bad story: all the cells were way behind the boundary sitting in the cool air with seemingly no hope of latching. Nearing the Amarillo 335 loop by 5:15, I didn't even pause for a photo. The low, cold, shelfy base was not our sought-after prize.

Instead, I mentally wrote off everything Amarillo and north -- immediately turning our attention to the discrete dryline storms approaching Lubbock. Still 2 hours to our south, it was a gamble, but the northern storms seemed hopeless left behind in the cold air. Thankfully, during our drive south, the SPC issued MCD #758 which was reassuringly similar to my own thinking. In a hobby where second guessing and analysis paralysis are a constant danger, it was nice to have backup from the best of the best. Lubbock or bust.

7:15 - 9:00 PM CDT: After "core punching" the dying lead supercell, we continued south through Lubbock and pulled off near the little community of Woodrow. The trailing supercell was much more discrete with clear inflow and a hook headed in our direction. Our horizon-to-horizon landscape was perfect, and while initial views were hazy (again hampered by wildfire smoke), structure soon became obvious. All cameras were out and snapping, including the Karma drone, as a stubby lowering began to gather and wrap up several miles to our WSW. All signs pointed to an imminent tornado entering the south side of Lubbock. An RFD clearing carved around the lowering, but ingredients were out of balance and the cycle quickly disorganized.

At 7:35, simultaneous to the collapse of the 1st cycle, a new handoff took shape to the east. Almost caught off guard (like at Rozel, KS 6 years earlier), I quickly landed the drone and threw camera gear at Toni as a new wallcloud gathered strength just a mile away. Thankfully, we were slightly south of the path. As we charged north, a tight cinnamon bun whirled overhead just outside the windshield. There might have been a brief ground circulation, or it might have been my imagination, but almost as quickly as cycle 2 organized, it too fell apart.

The next half hour was a classic cat-and-mouse game as we stair-stepped ahead of the hook -- sometimes crossing the RFD boundary and getting blasted with dust and gustnadoes. At 8:13, we turned north on FM400 headed towards the tiny town of Idalou. A new, more robust wallcloud was forming ahead to the NNW. As we drove up alongside this feature, it underwent an amazing transformation. The slow rotation focused and sped up by an order of magnitude. At the same time, the ragged lowering morphed into a smooth, laminar nub funnel. We were literally watching the engine of tornadogenesis power up. At 8:17 we pulled off with the tight rotation just barely behind us. Immediately I could see dust and small debris lofted in a tight circle about 200 yards away. We had a tornado -- weak but definitely on the ground! Lighting and contrast were terrible for capturing this uncondensed circulation, and my T3i just barely caught the ground gyre crossing the road behind us (a few other chasers actually passed through the rotation). There was also a distinct rush of wind noise in the trees as it passed. And with that, our closest tornado intercept to date was over.

Excited by our catch, we continued NE with the storm as it passed north of Lorenzo. At 8:33, the cell mutated into a more HP, double-hooked appearance. At the same time, the setting sun made a faint, ghostly appearance behind the hook's precip curtains. One of my favorite late-day chase vibes. Despite the double meso, mid-level rotation seemed to be ramping down. The storm did send a few intense RFD gusts our way as we let it rumble north in the fading light. Then it was time to head to Lubbock and Cricket's Draft House for some post-chase beers.

Recap, Filmmaking Notes, and Lessons Learned