Rumors were this day had some resemblance to a possible Jarrell type day with extreme instability,
and low shear. There were some boundaries too.  Once stretched N/S west of hwy 183 intersecting a
low (hmm, where - ABI a bit east?), the other stretched E/W across the Stephenville or Mineral Wells
area and south of DFW. I had broken my cell phone on Saturday's OK chase (account and pics soon), by
pulling the antenna out of the phone (don't ask). By the time I did some holiday stuff, and got the
phone fixed it was about 5pm.  I left from Round Rock on IH35 and went straight north where I stopped
in Temple.

At this time on radar cells were fairly strong along the E/W boundary north of Waco, and there was a
couple of cells just west and northwest of Temple that were obviously growing. My expectation was
the E/W boundary had been moving southward on animated vis sat and so I expected it to intersect my
westerly boundary and storms to hopefully make a superstorm and "boundary magic".  Cells to the north
were discrete and appeared to have somewhat small mostly horizontal "flying eagle" shapes. The
leading cell moving NE was mostly dominant and I reasoned stealing resources from the cells trailing
it.  I waited awhile, as the northern cells showed mesos.  At that time a tornado warning was issued
for Hill county I believe near or over northern Lake Whitney.  The destination was Coolidge and Mexia
in the warning. I quickie plotted this in Delorme and it told me about an hour and 7 minutes I
believe. This was about 10 or 15 minutes after the warning's estimated time of arrival of the
tornado in Coolidge. I thought this was a reasonable shot down hwy84 east of Waco, but for some
reason I delayed.

I tried to wait and see if the cells just west would strengthen and join up or do something. After
about 45 minutes I gave up on them.  Of course by this time I had lost essential time in catching the
Hill county storm, plus the cores of the two cells west of IH35 were already moving across the
interstate.  Regardless I continued north through rain, and used Swift for navigation to see what I
was driving into.  At one point I stopped and took some pictures of the cell to the west which had a
large wallcloud below it for some time.

I finally made it to the northern exit to hwy 84 in Waco and continued east. As I was exiting town
one of the storms which had been initially west of the Hill county cell (also a meso) was dangling a
wall cloud and funnel right in front of my face. I continued on basically driving under this
feature, but was a little concerned at the time since the other cell just east was T warned. I kept
trying to understand why the road was taking me straight into the inflow area and then straight into
the core.  The radar and SWIFT was showing it still north of hwy 84 (an east west road); however I
was driving directly into the obvious core.  It appeared that it would extend the entire way to the
other cell approaching Mexia.  I reluctantly turned around and as I was returning to Waco realized I
had somehow taken...THE WRONG ROAD.  Of course.  I was weird how this road forked off  from 84
without you knowing it.  Once again I had lost valuable time, and it was getting late - probably
close to 8:00. Knowing the correct hwy 84 I raced east on it trying to beat the cell I had been
driving into but it was no use.  I drove into the core as glimpses to south through thick veiled rain
curtains showed the rain free base in the distance and a possible tornadic area. As I drove east
winds increased to fairly high intensity, the sky was brownish / black, and hail began profusely
falling. I had hoped to make FM 939 south to the town of Mart but within a few miles I knew I was
driving into the thick of it and that as I turned south with the storm would only stay with me.  Not
to mention the potential tornadic portion might end up being overhead with no road options.  This
might work for some chasers, but isn't typically my strategy.

I turned around, back to the loop east of Waco and took hwy 6 toward Marlin. It continued to get
dark - sometime after 9pm now and I finally pulled over in the light rain east of Rocky Hill and a
few miles north of Marlin. There was spectacularly intense lighting going on with the severe cell to
the SE.  I videotaped this for awhile and then headed home.

No torns this day, but I saw funnel cloud, wall cloud, supercells, hail, and intense lightning.  Not
too bad on a non-tornadic day. If Jarrell II had happened I would have been ready.

 

May 31st 2004 - Memorial Day Chase

Tornado Extreme Storm Chase