May 29, 2001 Childress, TX Tornadic Supercell

May 29 was a day with tremendous tornadic potential in the Texas panhandle. Incredible shear, instability, CAPE and a boundary existed. SPC issued a PDS tornado watch box for the panhandle by early afternoon. We sat in Amarillo till the initial storm developed near Tulia. This storm took a long time to get its act together and even split 4 times. Typical for a high CAPE/high shear environment. Finally the supercell got going near Turkey, Texas and lost some of its outflow dominant appearance. A couple of possible rain wrapped tornadoes were seen as rapid cascading rain curtains were less than a mile away from us. I could even see condensation fingers rising and wrapping into the rain curtains. By early evening, this storm became my all time favorite supercell. It looked like an upside down wedding cake with the entire updraft rotating. About dark a rather large tornado developed near the town of Quanah, Texas and caused damage. The irony of it all is that just to our north a tornadic supercell produced several large tornadoes near the town of White Deer, Texas! Pics are below.

 

Storm develops.	Get better organized.
Starts to rotate.	Wrapping rain curtains show tornadic circulation.
Dust being pulled into base.	Rounded appearance to updraft.
Awesome structure!!	Another structure shot.
And again.	Sun setting to the right (north) of the supercell.
What more can be said of this beast.	Precip is evacuated from the updraft as it turns right.
Night lit shot of the meso.	Another night shot.
And yet another night shot.	Possible tornado??
Yes indeed a tornado!!!	And again, tornado near Quanah.