SURPRISE AUGUST EVENT 8/14/08

Well, August gave the TX and OK panhandles a surprise today with some severe thunderstorms in the area. Booker, TX had tennis ball sized hail with some windows knocked out of cars and homes. I started the day off piddling with some storms north of town near Four way. I got into some hail slightly smaller than dimes, and that's about as exciting as it got with that particular storm.

I then headed back towards Amarillo and noticed a line near Vega that was bowing out with some possible damaging winds. I headed down I-27 to intercept the line, and I shot some photos of the shelf cloud near Happy. The storms were moving due south at a pretty rapid pace, so I could never really get out in front to sample the intensity of the winds. The winds south of Happy never exceeded 50 mph or so, but it was fun nevertheless. I shot the following photos from Happy looking SW towards Arney.