5-18-10 REPORT

Hung out at the tv station until things got going. It looked pretty good for severe storms so we were ready to go. Saw a storm firing west of Dumas and headed that direction with my current chase partner Bri Winkler. As we got closer to Dumas, we began to see features of the storm to our southwest. We stopped about 10 miles south of Dumas to get a glance, and it had already produced a decent rain free base and small wall cloud. We got to Dumas and headed west of town to get a better view. It looked really good. It had a large wall cloud with a tail cloud to boot. We waited and watched a few minutes and I decided to go south about 3 or 4 miles. We got a good perspective and it looked pretty good. After a while, the updraft began to get filled in with rain, and it took on more of an HP status. We continued to watch it as Warren Faidley pulled up beside us and chatted for a while.

We watched the cell slowly drift toward Dumas as the rotation got wrapped in rain. We could see some rotation on the back side, and we thought we may have seen a wedge develop for a brief time. We decided it was just a very low hanging wall cloud. If it had indeed been a tornado, Dumas would have had their hands full. We went east of Dumas for a while but were caught on the backside of the storm. Besides, the storm was drifting into an area with very poor road options. We broke off the chase at this time and hoped storms might form further south near Amarillo. That never happened, but it was a great chase nonetheless.

PHOTO #1 LARGE WALL CLOUD SOUTHWEST OF DUMAS, TX
PHOTO #2 STORM FEATURES WEST OF DUMAS, TX
PHOTO #3 UPDRAFT OF STORM FILLING IN WITH PRECIP
PHOTO #4 WARREN FAIDLEY'S CHASE VEHICLE. THE PERSON STANDING THERE WAS NOT WARREN. I THINK IT WAS ONE OF HIS TOUR CUSTOMERS.
PHOTO #5 RAGGED ROTATION JUST WEST OF DUMAS, TX