5/14/13: Finally, a Storm!

 We finally had a day of storms ahead of us, something that we hadn't seen for the previous three days. We were so excited to see anything other than clear blue skies that it didn't matter how intense the storm was. From our morning meeting we had picked a place just southeast of Sonora, TX that had a turn off area/picnic area that was good for viewing. We had gotten to the place early, around 1pm, in order to be able to watch the storms build and move past us from beginning to end. After sitting there for around four hours and a radar that showed absolutely nothing firing, we decided to push north toward a complex that had been moving across Texas for the past few hours. It was technically a squall line at the time which isn't necessarily great for trying to chase sever weather, but since we hadn't seen the hint of a cloud in three days we were willing to move toward it. To our surprise, and a little bit of luck, what was a squall line had turned into a single cell thunderstorm with hints of supercell intensity at times. We got to our location, about two miles south of Big Lake, TX just in time to watch the storm move across the sky to our north with a really good looking shelf cloud. Skies were becoming increasingly dark and winds were starting to change. When we had gotten to Big Lake, temperatures were reading 85°F and after sitting and watching for about 10 minutes the gust front had pushed through, kicking up all kinds of dust while pushing through. This had plunged temperatures from 85° to 66° instantly. All of us were super excited, smiling from ear to ear at the fact that we got to see some weather. Tomorrow's out look looks even better than today's did and I will be the chase leader for tomorrow, meaning that I need to know the most about what we're doing and where we should go tomorrow after looking at as much data I can. After we finished watching the storm in Big Lake roll through, we headed north to Abilene which is where we will be chasing tomorrow. The outlook for tomorrow is calling for possible tornadoes with the biggest threat being large hail.