June 5, 1995 - Dougherty, South Plains, Texas Supercells

Al Moller, Chuck Doswell, Martin Lisius and I met at the Lubbock, Texas NWSFO around 10 a.m. The forecast was fairly straight forward. An upper level circulation was evident in southern Colorado on the water vapor satellite imagery. An outflow boundary that had been in place for several days was still present between Amarillo and Lubbock. A surface low was located near Clovis, New Mexico with a dry line extending generally southward, bulging eastward to near Lubbock before curving back to near Midland. The target was east of the low and northeast of the dryline bulge, where rich moisture was returning along the east-west oriented outflow boundary.

We drove north from Lubbock to near Plainview and then east, where towering cumulus was developing.


Northeast of Plainview, Texas - looking north at the first wall cloud.	Northwest of South Plains, Texas - looking north at a developing mesocyclone.	From the same location as the previous slide, looking NNW at a rapidly rotating, but discarded meso.	Looking north at the underneath of a maturing mesocyclone. This structure produced a weak multiple vortex tornado.


A tornado developed northeast of South Plains, Texas on the edge of town.

Looking north at violently rotating rain curtains on the leading edge of the meso.	Looking WNW at a CG strike in the notch of a violent HP supercell near Aspermont, Texas.	Local paramedics holding giant hail that fell only a mile or so east of our location near Jayton, Texas.

	Looking ESE at sunset colors reflected off of the retreating thunderstorm.	The beauty of the dying thunderstorm belies its violent past.

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June 5, 1995 - Dougherty, South Plains and Dickens, Texas Supercells