5/12/2009 - Texas Panhandle Storms

Tuesday featured a rather diffuse High Plains dryline, moderate instability, lackluster shear, and a tiny shortwave trough moving across the Texas Caprock and Panhandle regions. We targeted the area from Lubbock to Floydada, and northward. We spent a short time at the Wind Museum in Lubbock before moving north on I-27 to intercept some high-based convection moving across the far western Texas Caprock region. These storms struggled against the fairly stout cap and featured extremely high bases in the well-mixed airmass. Eventually we tracked east toward Floydada where we intercepted some northeast-bound convection that had initiated just east of Lubbock. We stayed ahead of these storms as the bases slowly lowered in the more moist atmosphere east of the Caprock. The storms were multicellular, but featured unique transitory shelf clouds, interesting shelf cloud kinks, and magnificent belches of mammatus under the anvil. These severe-warned storms dropped some large hail, which we didn’t sample, and produced damaging winds along their path from Turkey, TX to Erick, OK. We photographed the storm all along this track and were treated to a spectacular sunset under the shelf near Wellington, TX. After sunset, we tried to find a hotel room in Erick, OK – instead we found the storm had cut power to the town and had even flipped an 18-wheeler on I-40. We then skedaddled over to Elk City, where we found ourselves in a raunchy Days Inn motel that will never be featured in their commercials due to its nastiness.

Iridescent clouds over Lubbock's Wind Museum.

Large turbine, and iridescent clouds, at the Wind Museum.

Typical Texas Caprock situation -- a train, distant storms, and flat, flat, flat.

Mammatus under the mid-afternoon, high-based convection.

Multicells take on a shelf appearance across the far eastern Texas panhandle.

Evening mammatus.

Another view of the spectacular mammatus.

Storm basking in the late evening sun.

One more shot of the mammatus.

A mix of hues in the east Texas panhandle.

The setting sun bathing the severe storm in fire.

Almost feels like an Icy Hot patch commercial -- hot and cold at the same time.

The setting sun provided a complex array of oranges and blues.

One last shot before dark.