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With the major system passing through on Thursday/Friday, we were left with meager moisture across the region to mess with. The Gulf was beginning to recover, and still needed a bit more time to recover. However, on the western side of the surface high pressure system, there was a nice axis of moisture that set up shop across eastern New Mexico and into southeastern Colorado by Sunday afternoon. We began the day in Amarillo and were looking for some low-precipitation supercell action.
The ingredients were there. There was decent wind shear across the region, with pretty okay synoptic forcing. What really made the southeastern Colorado target stick out was that all of the moisture was streaming into that region and creating a zone of strong moisture convergence from that region and into northern New Mexico.
Let me make it clear: we weren’t expecting tornadoes this day. We were expecting very high based storms that had the potential to have great structure with them. We targeted Boise City, Oklahoma to have a nice pivot point. As soon as we got there, we ate a quick Subway sandwich and headed towards the storms. This was not before a couple of great picture opportunities. Boise City had some major fossils found in the area, and it has an awesome Dinosaur statue, which we no doubt had to get a picture with.
In the same field, there was a Tin man just standing there, so of course we took a picture with that as well.
Now back to storms. They had begun to initiate along what I found to be the most obvious zone of convergence I had seen in real life. The high cloud bases were evident, but towering cumulus grew out of them and grew along a similar line from northeast to southwest.
It was pretty awesome to see, and they just gradually grew as time progressed. They were moving very slowly, so we were able to get into an awesome position to see the storms themselves as they developed. This area just so happened to be the place where the borders of Colorado, New Mexico and Oklahoma came together. The storms were absolutely awesome looking. They occasionally had weak mesocyclones, but nothing too strong ever. We switched up our viewing of them in the middle of everything, which brought even better views of the storms.
The storms grew, and one storm took over. We decided to chase this one; not so much expecting structure or anything, but really looking for lightning. The storm had quickly grown into a major lightning producer, and we raced to get out in front of it to get some great shots. And great shots we got. I have never seen such awesome lightning. I have seen much more concentrated lightning, but nothing like this. It was over field and there were awesome opportunities for great landscape shots.
These storms would gradually weaken, and we would head to Dumas, TX. In Dumas was possibly the best Mexican food we have had the entire trip, but also the best service we have had. The place was called Las Portillos. We rolled up at like 7:45 or something, and they close at 8. They happily served our party of 10 with fantastic food, and our waitress was hilarious. It was a great stop to a pretty cool day.
We woke up in Dumas on Monday, and the target has become fairly obvious by that point. The synoptics for a good event were there, as eastern New Mexico was in the left exit region of an upper level jet streak, and also had increasing mid level flow throughout the day.
The broad westerly flow aloft was followed with easterly flow at the surface, creating a relatively favorable environment for supercells to develop. However, these storms weren’t gonna be growing from near the surface. With dewpoints only around 50 degrees, the cloud bases were gonna be pretty high off the ground. Research reveals that deep layer shear and creation of horizontal vorticity is critical in the development of mid-level mesocyclones. As the evening progressed, deep layer shear became favorable for supercells across eastern New Mexico.
So we headed for Tatum, New Mexico that morning to sit and wait. We sat in the city park for a few hours just waiting for convection to finally initiate. It had been struggling with a cap across the region, apparent by showers going up and weakening almost immediately. We were on a cool storm that tried, and failed to develop.
However, storms finally initiated near us. We raced to the north of Tatum to get in position to see this storm, and it had some beautiful structure. However, it began to gust out pretty quickly and weaken as it did so. But even so, the storm was beautiful.
To our west near Roswell, there were two completely isolated storms moving very slowly southeastward. We decided to race out to get them and oh my goodness; it was the best move we mad all trip. The storm was producing major reflectivity on radar. It looked like it was raining really hard and hailing on top of that.
While it looked like it was raining really hard, the storm was only producing hail. It was simply incredible. The storm was as classic a low-precipitation supercell as you can get. The precip was minimal, and was largely only hail. The updraft was faaaaaar separated from its downdraft region, and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in nature. We also caught it at sunset, which made it clutch with pictures.
This storm was the highlight of my trip. I have never seen a thunderstorm that I thought was prettier than that one, and I don’t think I will. All of us, including experienced chasers such as Dr. Durkee and Dr. Dixon, were stunned by its structure and beauty. This was the weather highlight of the trip, no doubt about it.