I left Amarillo around 11:00 pm and headed down 287 towards Wichita Falls. I got to Wichita Falls around 2:30 or 3 as a storm was moving into town. It wasn't that impressive on radar, and besides, it was already a few miles north. I decided to head south because I was seeing a storm on radar SW of Archer City. It looked more impressive on radar as each update came in. I made my way to Scotland, TX and found a ranch road leading SW out of town. I got out of town about 6 miles or so and found a nice place to sit and wait. I immediately began seeing the rain free base along with a pretty well developed wall cloud. I never really saw any strong rotation with the wall cloud but I could see slight rotation. I let the storm get closer to my location and it was evident that the storm would pass very close to Scotland. I let the storm pass and I began hearing reports of 4 inch and larger hail just north of town. I went north to sample the hail, but I could only find mostly hen egg size hail with a few tennis balls in the mix.
I continued north to try and intercept the storm since the road options here were better than if I had tried to go east. I eventually got to Henrietta and realized the storm was just moving too fast to catch back up to it. I then went south on US 148 to sample some more hail. I made it about 3-5 miles south of Henrietta and began seeing fairly large hail on the side of the road. I stopped and took a few photos of the hail which varied in size from golf balls to tennis balls. I took a few pics and continued south. I then saw some chasers playing with the hail and I decided to stop and chat. One of the chasers was Rich Thompson from the Storm Prediction Center and his 2 chase partners. I'm sorry, but I don't remember the names of the other 2 guys. We chatted for a few minutes as we tried to hit fence posts with the hail. We were throwing all balls and no strikes. Eventually Rich ran up to the fence post and threw a hailstone and hit it. He said he didn't want to leave without hitting the fence post. I laughed as we went our separate ways.
I got in the truck, looked at radar and noticed an isolated storm beginning to fire between Olney and Throckmorton. It was looking better on every update so I decided make an intercept. I went south on 241 and eventually made it to the intersection of SR 16 and SR 114 near the town of Loving. A nice rain free base was observed along with a forming wall cloud. I knew I had to get east very quickly as this storm was reported to be moving at 45 mph! I quickly went east and then turned south near Jermyn. I went south a couple of miles until I found a good spot for viewing. A few minutes later, the wall cloud really began taking shape but I never saw any tornadic rotation with it. Nevertheless, it still looked really good. I called Jay McCoy and he was trying to get in position for better viewing. We finally met up near Jermyn and it became apparent that the storm was becoming outflow dominant. We sat and watched the storm for a while and then decided to head back home. I got a nice parting sunset shot just west of Wichita Falls near Iowa Park. It was a great ending to a great chase. Here are a few photos from the day:
PHOTO #1 WALL CLOUD SW OF SCOTLAND, TX
PHOTO #2 HAIL SOUTH OF HENRIETTA, TX
PHOTO #3 WALL CLOUD NEAR JERMYN, TX
PHOTO #4 STEVE MILLER (TX) TAKING IN THE STORM
PHOTO #5 SUNSET NEAR IOWA PARK, TX
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