This was a day where I nearly made the same mistake as so many times before, ignoring a lifting warm front and / or the proximity of the vort max. Luckily, this day, Steve and I helped convince each other about where we should go, and we raced north to this storm, catching it in time to witness the tornadoes.
Steve and I used a wet clay road (visible in the images) and when the elephant trunk lifted, the parent circulation moved toward our position, forcing a decision about moving forward or backwards. The images below that show only the wedge were taken while I had the camera in one hand and my eyes on the old circulation approaching us from the southwest.
Texas Twins
Elephant trunk on the ground at 5:50 PM
Former elephant trunk approaches our position...
but this is more interesting
Scott Eubanks and John Poch also chased with us. Huge thanks to Phillip Flory for excellent nowcasting.
Here's a clip of the twins with Steve and I sounding like two guys
from Texas, which we are:
3 meg video clip of Tornadoes
Touchdown
"Caprock Magic Show Later Today
Lubbock, Texas--Watching a very powerful mid-level impulse churn towards the Texas panhandle right now where a juiced boundary layer awaits. I have no doubt that some storms will have tornadoes; the question is whether or not we'll see them or be on the right storm. We're gonna try. Our target at the moment is from Dimmit to Hereford, Texas, eding north along with the front. We expect long-lived supercells to travel east or just north of due east, so we could chase them right along the I-40 corridor into Oklahoma later today. We'll see"