The storm continued to move to the east and as it did, wall clouds would form and dissipate. Low level circulation was never detected by radar or by any of us in any of the wall clouds. Most of the wall clouds simply gusted out as the rain became heavier and heavier within the storm as it moved east and continued to encounter deeper moisture. Here is a satellite image of the storms that day.

By nightfall the storms were "lining" out and in many cases bowing out. The winds were becoming increasingly stronger in the behind the gust front. A few tornado warnings were issued for a few of the storms. It appeared with the location of these warnings, they were probably "tail-end charlie's" on the north side of the bow echoes. One of the areas was accompanied by power line flashes. It could have been straight line winds or a small tornado but there was no way to tell. It was a good chase for day 1

Day 2 was a bit more impressive. We had stayed the night in Amarillo. We had a van problem that took up most of the morning, but that was ok because our forecast area was just the east of Amarillo. We didn't need to move very much. A low was forecast to move into the panhandle associated with a dry line. A cold front was dropping down form the north. The low, dry line, and cold front intersection was what we were playing for. As it turned out..the dry line stayed a bit further west than anticipated..but other than that our forecast was ok. We had dropped down south a bit and by 5:00 nothing had happened. Paul and Matt were having visions of a bust day. The cu's were not even firing very impressively. Just then.. as we sat in Silverton, TX, we get reports that the winds in NM behind this quasi-dryline were becoming more westerly while we notice the winds in this town becoming stronger from the southeast. Is a shortwave finally coming through? A moisture convergence bullseye was in our location and the cu's looked more impressive. A half an hour later a storm formed to our north and south. The one to the north had reports of baseball hail and an ESE movement..right of the mean flow. After a little discussion b/t Paul and Matt, it was decided to go north. A call back to the gang at COD and Gilbert at NIU confirmed that this was the good storm.

As we approached we noticed a good backsheared anvil and solid tower, a good precipitation core to the northeast and a rain-free base. However.. we also noticed some stuff to it's due east. What was it? Paul wanted to stop the vans to take a peek. Hey, it's a storm ahead of the one we were after. Within minutes, it had a mesocyclone. Good features at the low levels and mid levels in this storm with nothing to our south to cut it off. The mid level winds were weak this day, too, but the directional shear was very good and storm relative hodo's would be more than sufficient for tornadoes.

The storms continued to evolve. We headed east quite a ways and stopped so we'd have plenty of time to watch. Within a few minutes we noticed what appeared to be a funnel to the northwest of the main low-level meso/rain free base. Upon further investigation, it was clear that it was an older meso as dry air had wrapped around it in an occlusion. We only saw the end of it but 99.9% sure a small tornado had dropped down while we were driving. It didn't even appear there was a wall cloud..just a quick spin up of some kind.

Meanwhile, the main rain-free base had developed a more impressive wall cloud with very good rotation. At one point some debris underneath it began to rotate, but for only a second. The storm continued to move east. We took a trek to the north a few miles and then parked on a road facing east. Unfortuneatly this road was not a good road and roads east were very rare in this area. We were forced to watch the wall cloud and rain on the backside go by. Here is a radar image from about that exact time, and a closer view. We watched as the rain curtains went by rapidly and low and behold as the rain finally cleared, a small tornado showed itself. Here is a velocity scan and a zoomed in velocity scan. It probably had been down quite a few minutes before this but we just couldn't see it.

We then took a trip south a bit to get to an east road that was some 5 or 6 miles away but we noticed another supercell had formed to the east. It was confusing at first there the back of the one had ended and the new one began. It was almost two cells with similar characteristics very close to each other. A rather large wall cloud emerged from this cell but rotation was either weak or non-existent. We had met up with Roger Edwards and Rich Thompson and they would later tell us by looking at radar at SPC that the storm with the tornado before this was the only real storm of the day. This new supercell never really go going. By this time the storms were becoming a squall line with very frequent to continuous lightning occurring. The lightning kept us entertained all the way to our next hotel in Wichita Falls.

Day 3 was simply a day were clusters of storms formed near the Odessa area. Very weak mid-level winds and only marginal directional shear.. especially at low levels did not allow updrafts to sustain themselves. Storms looked ok at times, but for the most part were just wind makers. Again though, very intense lightning formed with these storms which allowed for great lightning photo opportunities during the night.

The storm pictures will be in here soon!