I started the day off in Woodward, OK. I stayed the night there because I chased in SW KS the day before, plus it was kind of a pre-deployment. My chase partner from the previous day had to return to Norman for a final. So We met a friend in Calumet, OK and dropped him off there around 10:30am. So this is where the chase actually began from.

I headed west on I-40 and decided to stop in Shamrock, TX for a data check at the Best Western off of Main St. Had a fairly thick cloud deck there and temps where being held down. Stopped at a hotel and got some internet. I saw that the first cell had gone up NW of Lubbock. Convinced that it was surface based, I decided to fly south out of Shamrock on US 83. From Paducah, TX, I turned back west on US 70. I believe at this point, the first cell had become tornado warned. I continued east through Matador and then up the escarpment. The haze was so bad that I could not locate the storm visually. I had to rely to a nowcaster (Jeff Beck @Texas Tech and Adam Atkins @OU) to tell me exactly where the storm was located. With their help, I then turned decided to procede west to Floydata and then north on SR 207.

Finally I could visually see the storm. I proceded north on 207 until CR 110. I stopped there and checked out the storm. The storm definately had a low base, but other than that, it did not appear to have much rotation in the lowest levels. The storm appeared to look outflow dominant, but I don't think it was. I then trekked a little further north to FM 2286. At this point, the storm was getting a little better organized. It was starting to show signs of low level rotation. The wall cloud was becoming more blocky and even lowering a bit. I felt is was now time to get closer to the area of interest. So I continued north through South Plains up to CR 72, then turned west. I zig-zaged around on some farm roads and then ended up back on 207. During this time I got some video of a couple of gustnadoes. It was pretty cool because of the contrast of the green fields and the lite color of the gustnadoes.



Once on 207 again, I turned north and weaved through the "chaser convention circus." I would stop every once and a while and grab some pics. I continued north until I got to CR F (almost to Silverton), at this point, the storm was cycling its Meso. A visiable rainfree base was hard to find. I hung out there until the leftover meso started slinging racquetballs at me. At this point, I decided to bail on the first storm and play the second storm which I could see off to my southwest. This was a very good decision!

I turned around and proceded south on 207. The second storm was still a good deal away, but already looked better then the first. I decided to get a more secluded spot away from the circus. I turned east on CR A and travelled two miles until a came to the old railroad crossing. This is where I set up and waited for the second storm to come directly towards me. While at this location, I saw several more gustnadoes. The inflow also started to increase. The RFD was trying to punch around the wall cloud. The storm was definately beginning to take shape. I stayed at that spot until the wall cloud was about 3 miles from me. I started getting rain, so I packed up and headed back to the "circus" on 207.

I traveled south on 207 until I passed CR 72 and pulled over south of 72. The wall cloud now had a large funnel dropping from it. I got out and grabbed some pics and video. I stayed there for about a minute and watched it become a tornado.

I had to make a decision at this point. Keep in mind that I am chasing by myself this day. I could play a slightly more conservative approach and get south of the tornado or I could be more aggressive and stay north and east of the tornado. I made the conservative decision to drop south to around South Plains on 207. So I flew south into South Plains. When I arrived there, the tornado was probably 1.5 miles off to my northwest. I pulled over just south of CR 80 on the north side of the town. The tornado then tracked SSE towards 207. When the tornado was about a half mile west of 207, a new lowering developed directly east of the tornado roughly around 207. As the tornado approached 207 the RFD began to wrap around the tornado and I started losing visual on it. You could literally see the RFD rapidly approaching South Plains. Since I could no longer see the tornado and didn't want to risk getting walloped by the RFD, I decided to go south to FM 2286 and then go east. Once I did that, I could no longer see the tornado or the new wedge tornado that had developed from the lowering that I noted earlier. Oh well...at least I did not receive any hail damage that so many people suffered that day. Here is some pictures from South Plains.

From this point on, I continued south and east on dirt roads until I came to FM 97. I watched the storm come off the escarpment but, at this point, it had become HP and looked pretty nasty to chase. So I hung up the hat, got out the cell phone and made some calls to newstations and sold my video, paying for many more chases!

Here is some video from that day.