STORM CHASING GRIND CONTINUES

Howdy everyone! The Chasecation 2025 grind continues across the Southern Plains with multiple days of significant severe weather including destructive hail and tornadoes.

On Wednesday, I tracked this supercell west of Johnson, Kansas that quickly developed a pronounced rotating wall cloud. It produced a weak tornado before another storm merged with it. In some cases, storm mergers can actually intensify storms but in this case it actually killed it. In the photo above you can see the big wall cloud on the left with hail over 2" in diameter falling in the downdraft on the right.

We continued to follow the storms southeast into the Oklahoma Panhandle and the northern Texas Panhandle. The storm structure was absolutely incredible with multiple layers stacked over the flat landscape of the Plains. This storm would continue to produce significant hail and powerful wind gusts. As sunset hit, we decided to let the strongest core pass by and come in from behind on the hunt for significant hail - and we scored!

We scoured a flooded field on some rural Texas roadway and found lots of hail over baseball in size. The largest stone we could find we measured at 3.24" - the largest hail report for the day according to the Storm Prediction Center.

There is something so incredibly satisfying about holding a bunch of tennis ball and baseball sized hail stones. They made for some great ice in my Coke later that evening (once I rinsed them off, of course).

Thursday was yet another chase day in Texas. We watched three separate supercells develop just south of Lubbock, Texas. The middle of the three became the dominant cell, ingested the eastern one, and began to rapidly intensify. Above you can see one of the original attempts at tornadogenesis with the rotation tightening with the aid of a nearby outflow boundary.

The storm were ingesting and kicking out an immense amount of dust given the dry conditions in the area. We call these "vacuum cleaner supercells." While it greatly reduces visibility of the storms, it can also be useful in determining where the air is flowing. In this case, you can see it getting sucked up into the base and updraft of this supercell. This would be the area we need to watch.

The storm was a challenge to chase, and doing so effectively to actually see a possible tornado required a lot of precision with little room for error. We positioned ourselves right in the inflow notch of this southeast moving storm. Right behind us - destructive hail was falling. Just to our west was the possible tornado. Farther to the southwest was intense RFD winds approaching 70-90mph. Large hail could also be flying in this wind - not great for side windows! The "safest" way to pull this off is to hug the circulation, then as soon as it crosses the road in front of us, we blast south trying to beat out the RFD.

What was inside the inflow notch of the supercell was magical. A large, rotating column of red Texas dirt at close range. This beefy circulation continues for about five minutes as we played a game of cat and mouse. Those south of the storm were not able to see it due to the amount of dust south of the storm. You had to really dance with the monster to properly see it. This time of year there are a lot of storm chasers out there, but very few are located here which makes traversing so much easier.

The tornado passed just north of Lamesa, but the RFD with winds up to 90mph and baseball-sized hail was coming. We still had two hours before sunset but the town was already incredibly dark due the the combination of the intense, tall thunderstorm blocking the sun and the amount of dust getting kicked up by it. All the streetlights were on as the tornado sirens were blaring. Quite the spooky trip trying to quickly get through town to beat the wind and hail.

The National Weather Service is expected to survey any potential damage on Friday to determine the specifics of this circulation.

Once the tornado passed the road, we blasted south ahead of it. This would limit any more potential tornado sightings, but the adrenaline and stress of our location can only last too long. We were treated to a developing haboob with dirt kicked out by the gust front ahead of the storm. Notice how much lighter it is outside the storm now. The structure was fine but nothing too incredible. Not a bad way to end what is likely our last chase day of this trip as the weather pattern calms down a bit.

Thanks for following along, everyone! If some magic happens this weekend on my last few days on the Plains, I'll make sure to fill you in. For now, have a great weekend,

-Meteorologist Nick Stewart