Supercells | 1 June 2023 | Lamesa to Snyder, Texas

Published on June 1, 2023

This was a rough one. I planned to target an outflow boundary between Hobbs, New Mexico and Andrews, Texas. As the day wore on, it became apparent the west side of the boundary was not interested in convecting. We repositioned eastward as cell fired near Lamesa and moved east-southeast. As we got closer, another cell popped up east of Lamesa and I navigated close to see what it looked like. It was kicking up some dust, but didn’t look like it had much of a future.

So we bailed on that storm and tried catching up with the original cell which was now southwest of Snyder. As we got close, that storm was looking fun as it dragged bands of dust across the road ahead. But we didn’t manage to get in front of it, and it was starting to dissipate. As it receded, it spread out a long arcus across a golden field.

Looking back west, the cell we left earlier had held its own for a bit and showed some detached structure at a distance.

As we headed back to the original storm and a hint of convection to its south, we got to watch things fall apart and toss out rainbows as we got close. At our last stop, as we cleaned mud off our shoes and the door jambs, a husband and wife showed up driving an ATV to check up on us. Turns out we were parked next to the entrance to one of their fields. We chatted for a while about what was up with all the out-of-state chase vehicles and how the storms turned out that day. Then they trundled on down the dirt path onto their land and left us to finish up our scraping and puddle splashing.