Left Austin about 12:30 and met up with Mitch Farrell (Graham Butlers old chase partner) at Don’s Barbecue at Hwy 183 and hwy 29 near Liberty Hill.  Shot north up 182 to the town of Cisco. The idea was to get to the position of the low and boundary intersection, and if that didn’t pan out to play the dryline or trough boundary to the south. Along the way a Tornado Watch was issued in the ‘area of interest’ and as we approached Cisco a Tornado Warning was issued for a cell (I believe) near Albany. We passed through town and continued north on hwy 183 to near Gunsight.  Between Gunsight and Cisco we drove through intermittent rain with very large drops.  Near Gunsight there were numerous rain free bases, wallclouds, and extending funnels.  Radar was showing a few stacked cells oriented SSW to NNE that were somewhat overlapping with the northernmost I believe showing TVS.  The warning was a bit old, and all the cells interfering with each other bothered me so I didn’t try and catch the northernmost cell. Instead I watched the development to the west as a large base was approaching and attempting to run us over. Realizing this we decided to take hwy 112 toward Ranger. Along the way we stopped a few times and watched the storm to the west. Eventually the area just to our north started supporting some very intense sheet like white lightning blasts. We took a small dirt road north to check this out before the base ran over us.  By the time we got into position the bolts weren’t as frequent. Mitch got out in the occasional drips of rain and I warned about the lightning.  He was standing directly between my dashcam and the storm with the bolts of lightning in the distance, but fortunately nothing happened.  No strikes to us this day even though (as we now know) other chasers were not as fortunate.  We continued to Ranger, and then south to I20.  At that point I believe a tornado warning was issued for Eastland (it may have only been a severe).  The storm was headed directly to Eastland. We hoped to make it before the bad stuff hit but realized we were probably going to plow through it for awhile before our exit. The precip got heavier, and in the distance you could see a very intense curtain of very dark grey.  I assumed this was very large hail (mentioned), and very, very heavy rain.  We got to drive almost into this when we hit the hwy 6 exit.  I turned south just as the worst of it was hitting.

From here I decided to go for the dryline because I could see there was a separate cell that looked strong on radar.  Along the way it was showing a TVS. The cell was just northwest of Coleman. Before arriving we shot a couple of digital stills out the window.  The storm had a huge (very long) wall cloud underneath with some lowering.  We continued to approach with a second tornado warning issued for this cell and found a dirt road, which I believe, was northwest of Echo.  The road was facing west.  We drove down it a couple of miles and then pulled over when we had a great view of the large wallcloud approaching us across the green pasture filled with cows.  We pulled out the equipment, and started shooting video.  It was very picturesque.  The wall had a couple of inflow stingers for awhile that were dramatic and you could see the cloud material racing in. After a while a bit of a rain curtain formed and a fairly large funnel dropped a bit less than halfway to the ground. We had hopes but it was not to be. At that point we started hearing a very load hail roar that sounded like a jet taking off in the sky to our northwest.  It also sounded a bit like continuous thunder.  We did have a bit of lightning with associated thunder, but not much.  The rain started coming, and so we put up our equipment and got ready to reposition.  I knew the vault would soon be near.  Sure enough some large hail (quarter to golfball) started hitting things.  I barely had time to wonder what I was hearing when one of the larger pieces struck me in the foot!  LOL!  I jumped in the car.  I wasn’t convinced there weren’t larger baseballs soon to follow.  I did hear later that there was very large hail associated with this storm. We bailed south to Bangs, and then on into Brownwood as the tornado warnings (with a supposed confirmed tornado with this storm) continued. It was about rush hour and I was familiar with Brownwood.  It’s not a real large town, but large enough to slow us down and stop in traffic. For awhile it appeared to our north that the RFD had carved the back of the storm and there was a substantial amount of strong motion in the clouds. Sure I had visions of it coming down while I was stuck in traffic.  However luck held and we made it to hwy 183 / 84 southeast out of town. The wallcloud reformed once & maybe twice and we filmed some more. Here as we were headed southeast on 84 the Silver Lining group appeared in a couple of vehicles with none other than apparently Roger Hill at the helm. They turned off toward Democrat which is where the meso was indicating.  It was getting a bit later and I was considering breaking off the chase, but instead (nah) we turned at Mullin and took the road toward the Meso and Democrat also. I forget if we actually made it.  Somewhere along the way we took another dirt road toward Hamilton and turned off in a bit of a scenic, secluded place I found the Tempest Tours group with all there people out.  Bill Reed and Scott Weberpal came out and said hi. Hi guys! They were kind enough to show me what ThreatNet looked like since I was in an analog area and unable to get radar.  It looked reasonably good and pretty much had the meso’s and there positions circled (and twirling) on the screen.  I thanked them and headed off.  Stopped and watched the lightning for awhile. Up in Hamilton saw the Silver Lining group stopped at a quick food place. I didn’t bother them, but found a pretty decent Mexican food place on the southern end of town.

We headed home after that. Somewhere nearing Lampasas on the eastern side of the road there was a fairly large cell in the half moon light that was just going crazy with lightning effects. This was pretty much insane and beautiful at the same time. It had lots of bolts to ground (zap!) and they would typically arc along the back of the cell but fairly close to it.  It also had a lot of internal lightning that lit up the whole thing like a big Jack-O-Lantern of lightning. It was amazing! We wanted to stop, and we were going to film this spectacle, but we didn’t immediately have a good place to pull off and we kept getting closer so we thought the view would just get better.  Well, I missed the best turnoffs because I was going too fast, and by the time we got to Briggs the thing appeared to be slowing. By the time I pulled off there was practically NO lightning in it. In about 20 to 30 minutes it had simply turned OFF!  Darn!! That would have been amazing to videotape.  I blew it!  That would have been as good or better than most tornadoes. I guess a lightning bolt in the had is better than two in the bush, but I’ll leave it to others to ponder that phrase.

Tornado Extreme Storm Chase