CHASE SUMMARY FOR 5/6/08

Tuesday looked like a pretty decent day for a chase to me. I targeted an area SW of Lubbock, TX which happened to be Brownfield, TX. I happened to see David Drummond in the area and stopped and chatted with him. A few minutes later, Steve Miller (TX) and Jay McCoy showed up. We chatted for a few minutes and talked about the day ahead. We eventually went and got gas and headed south. We were seeing storms fire up along the I-20 corridor. Towers started going up in the area and David and I stopped south of Seagraves while Jay and Steve kept going south.

David and I chatted for a while as we watched the towers going up. We got out our cameras and took a few stills and talked about our next move. We decided to head back to Seagraves as a pretty good storm was forming in the area. As we got to Seagraves, we went east toward Loop. As we got a few miles east of Seagraves, we encountered outflow winds of at least 65-70 mph. We saw 3 power poles that were snapped at the base. Winds may have gotten as high as 80 mph or so right before we got there. Anyway, we weaved our way around to try to keep up with the storms. At times we would see a wall cloud form and then get lost in the rain shaft. Like others have said, the storms were backwards. The bases were to the north of the rain shaft. As David and I got close to Tahoka, I lost him and we never met back up.

As I got into Tahoka from the south, I saw a base with a pretty nice wall cloud and possible funnel. I can't verify that it was a funnel, but it sure was suspicious. I took a few stills of the wall cloud and possible funnel and then began to make my way to the north via interstate 27. As I got to Plainview, a nice storm was to the west and I stopped and took some stills of the anvil. I heard reports of softballs near Olton, but I didn't want any part of that. Basically, that's where the chase ended. Here are some photos from the day.


PHOTO #1 STORMS FORMING SOUTH OF SEAGRAVES, TX
PHOTO #2 WALL CLOUD JUST NW OF TAHOKA, TX
PHOTO #3 SUSPICIOUS LOWERING JUST NW OF TAHOKA, TX
PHOTO #4 STORM WEST OF PLAINVIEW, TX