Thanks to ABC 33/40 Skywatcher James Payton for these images… he writes:
“Hey James!!!
Cary Allen is a good friend of mine. He is a meteorologist at KCBD-TV 11 in Lubbock, TX. He sent me some pics & his account from yesterday’s severe weather event in Texas. In the end they ended up doing some major hail damage to the station’s stormchaser van (1 of 4 the station owns). Thought you might enjoy it.
Take care…& God Bless!!!
James 🙂
Storm Recap – Wednesday, April 23, 2008
What a day across the South Plains of West Texas!!
Yesterday, sunshine and beautiful…today…tornadoes and hail.
It was our first significant outbreak of the season tornado-wise.
The first thunderstorm warning went out at 9:35 a.m. and the severe weather episode continued nearly non-stop until 7:45 p.m.
Scheduled to be a volunteer Celebrity waiter for a Children’s Miracle Network event, I had to cancel as severe weather began unusually early in the day. A tornado warning was already issued for rural areas of the southern half of our region by 11:00am.
I came in to assist the morning and noon anchor and watches were issued until 4pm initially and then extended until 11pm.
Initally, I was in the studios taking phone calls and running Doppler. Hook echo signatures were showing up across the southern areas about 50 miles south of Lubbock. Snyder took a direct hit from a tornado mid-afternoon with damage to their high school.
By 3pm, I was sent into the field to chase. We went to Lamesa in Dawson County. When we arrived, a T-storm warning was in effect for a storm producing hail. Since it was non-tornadic, we punched the storm. We went through it successfully with pea-to-marble sized hail and heavy rain which flooded roadways quickly. Our aim was to get south of the storm and in favorable position to view and intercept a wall cloud that was developing and it was showing a hook echo in the process of developing too.
When we passed, the wall cloud became visible over the southwestern edge of the storm in perfect position, but we ran into an area where mud had crossed over the highway and we were stuck. The storm came over us with hail and high winds until a man came and pulled us out with chains. Praise the Lord!!! The storm later produced the tornado in the picture attached and we would have been in it’s path potentially. This photo was not taken by me, but taken by Josh Gideon who sent the picture to us at KCBD. We were in the rain shaft at the time this picture was taken.
After enduring 30 minutes of nothing more than 0.50″ diameter hail, we turned back to return to Lubbock.
A tiny, puny looking storm was forming to our west. I saw a lowering underneath it. It was an LP supercell. No rainfall was ever reported with it, but on radar, it looked like heavy rain. It was apparent that this storm was producing large hail. It was a rotating UFO shaped storm with no rain underneath the base and a funnel protruding from the bottom of it.
With the sun still shining through it, we progressed north and as we did, I noticed large hailstones busting into hundreds of pieces just ahead. They missed our Stormchaser for a short time, but all of a sudden a loud bang and a crack of the windshield was noted. It was at least baseball-sized. In less than 15 seconds, I could see mud and dirt being lifted off the ground from the impact of 3 to 4 inch diameter hailstones to our northeast (take a ruler or yardstick to measure how wide 4 inches can be and that would be the size of the average hailstone we were observing) We measured 4.25″ in diameter on the largest stone and this report is officially noted in the SPC national storm summary.
A few seconds later, we were bombarded with HUGE hail and the windows cracked all across the front windshield with each direct hit we took. On my side, one stone was able to penetrate the glass enough to shatter the winshield and bust a hole in it. Glass shattered onto our dash and into my lap. Our stormchaser unit suffered significant damage, but we were not injured thankfully. The weird part is that it was sunny as the hail popped us. There was absolutely no rain whatsoever…only hail. We caught a funnel nearby, but no touchdown. Attached are viewer hailstones taken by one of our viewers nearby. I was on-air, so I have no still shots, but we do have video and you can watch it online through Thursday morning at www.kcbd.com
We limped into Lamesa where we purchased an ice chest to preserve the stones that we salvaged. Most of the stones have now melted into 3 inch diameter hailstones, but they were spiked and quite ugly.
Stormchasing 2008 is off to an incredible start! The noise that hail like this produces is absolutely unforgettable. Imagine every kid in your neighborhood tossing softballs at your vehicle non-stop for about 5 minutes and that’s what we endured. Fortunately, we have 3 stormchasing units in total to prepare for Friday’s outbreak later this week. Our Unit 8 is out until further notice. Enjoy the pics. I wish I could take credit for them. I do have a ton of cell phone shots, but I can only send them to you if I have your phone number.
I’m off to sleep now. What a day!!!
Cary”
