June 5: West Texas Supercell

Wall cloud under thunderstorm near New Mexico - Texas state line.

Beautiful supercell near Maple, Texas.

Rain-wrapped tornado over freshly plowed fields near Smyer, Texas.

Intense west Texas HP Supercell with a reddish tint from dust being sucked into the storm.

Large hail is falling from this storm.

Last view of the storm.

June 6: Another West Texas Supercell

Severe thunderstorm develops over the plains west of Lubbock.

Wall cloud tries to form, but lack of storm rotation prevents organization.

Waiting under the main updraft on a west Texas dirt road.

Last shot before I re-locate ahead of the mesocyclone. With a large chase crowd, I don't want to get in the path of the mesocyclone. Instead of heading east, I turn south a few miles, then east again. While driving, I see a tornado to my north, about where I could have gotten caught in slow chaser traffic.

Comfortably ahead of the storm, and this time with a clear escape route.

Horizontal rope funnel cloud.

Spectacular LP Supercell is stirring up a dust storm due to a large area of freshly plowed fields south of Lubbock.

I find a break in the blowing dust to look back at the storm.

After a long, dusty drive, I find another clear spot (just north of Tahoka, Texas).

Intense east winds feed this severe thunderstorm.

The storm crosses the highway just north of me. Overall, an incredible long-lived supercell, but way too much blowing dust!

June 8: Oklahoma Thunderstorm

Newly developed storm in the Oklahoma panhandle. I'm hoping the northwest flow of the polar jet will bring me Classic Supercells rather than the messy HP Supercells of the past couple of weeks.

Nice structure but it soon weakens. Messy multi-cell thunderstorms develop across the Texas Panhandle, and I miss the HP Supercell further south. I thought this was the day I would finally see a long-lived supercell outside of Texas! This season was unique for me: unusually cool weather kept me in Texas for nearly the entire spring.

Oklahoma cattle wondering why I'm not further south watching the monster supercell. Thus ends my southern Plains chasing for this year, and it turns out my chase season has also ended. Although I head north for northern Plains chasing, the jet stream doesn't cooperate.