Winter Tornadoes

Chasing down a twister in Texas south of Vernon! This sped up view shows a segment of this April chase day, where the tornado was almost perfectly tracking along the highway. I had plans to intercept this tornado right as it crossed the highway when it turned north, but this twister disintegrated just before it reached that location. I’m pretty sure someone was doing a Twisters experiment or something. (In reality it is remarkable to see how rapidly vortex breakdown happens sometimes). 4.23.21 |

Even when you are careful, sometimes situations in storm chasing just turn dangeorous! On this day, we were chasing a wet-classic supercell that was definitely on the way to becoming HP. Thanks to a lake to our east, we only had a highway west and a highway going north. As we watched the supercell churn over the landscape near Brownwood, Texas — the rear-flank downdraft intensified rapidly, signaling the transition to a HP supercell was beginning. Unfortunately, we had waited too long taking in