I have been waiting for this day for nearly 10 years. Every now and then I go back into my old photos and remember this day. I could never find the spots where we stopped. I could never find that one house. The infamous house. The now iconic photo amongst me and my chase partners from that day. I was driving and taking directions from Collin. I had no idea where we were. Just that we were near Roby and Sylvester.
The day is March 28th, 2017. It is my third chase season. I am a noob, as they say. Riding shotgun are my friends Collin and Ryan. We've driven from South and Central Texas into an area Northwest of Abilene for a Moderate risk with a 10% tornado probability. Driving behind us is my brother in his F150. It seems like so long ago. I suppose it was. I saw some of my first tornadoes on this day. Albeit in the distance. I wasn't able to get photos.
We had just driven Southeast from around Roby down an FM road. Core punched into large hail, which, I guess wasn't that big now that I think about it. As the storm moved Northeast and we moved East, the wall cloud passed overhead. We stopped and looked backwards towards the storm we had just driven through.
We parked on the side of the road and watched from the fence line as the storm evolved. I snapped a photo of this house with the wall cloud entering from the left. I never knew from where that photo was taken, until today.
The image on the left was taken from the red dot on the radar just outside Sylvester. Within 2-3 minutes of that radar scan. While we are all standing around watching the wall cloud develop, Ryan is streaming live over the internet. A few minutes later, NWS issues a tornado warning based on that live stream. Looking back at this moment, I can see why they issued the tornado warning. It really looked like it would wrap up into a funnel. But knowing what I know now, I don't think it had much of a chance. Surface winds never ramped; they were mostly calm. But we still got some amazing structure photos.
After gawking at the supercell spinning to our North, we had to move and try to keep up with the storm. We got onto US 180 towards Anson, then began to drive North. Meanwhile, a storm to South of Anson, near Hawley, drops a confirmed tornado. We try to position so we can see it, but having just came from the Roby storm, we were behind it and only catch a brief glimpse of what we think is a tornado off in the distance. Somewhere north of US 180 along US 277. Unfortunately, I was the driver and we didn't stop until dusk. We had to navigate between storms in the heavy rain with an ongoing tornado to our East. Then, in the midst of the heavy rain, my phone rang. It was dad, just back from the doctor. I didn't think much of it at the time. We continued the chase, but almost immediately were hit by what felt like a very weak tornado. My Expedition was pushed sideways and then back, my brother, driving behind us, had a branch hit his truck. Collin called it an "eddy". Whatever that meant. I'm not sure if he was downplaying it or if he really thought it wasn't some sort of weak EF0 type tornado. You can judge for yourself in this video I posted two days later. https://youtu.be/Q4gB4H9_578
We continued Northeast into Stamford as the hook echo began to really take shape to our East. But the rain was so heavy and it was getting darker, we couldn't see anything. Eventually the cluster of embedded supercells would merge with ours. Effectively ending any chance for a tornado to continue. We drove north into Haskell, then East towards Throckmorton, where we stopped to watch the storms as they continued North. I managed to get a rare shot of the back of Ryan's head as he holds his camera. We kept noticing what we thought could be wall clouds and funnels. Wishful thinking at that point I suppose.
Looking back on that time in my life, chasing with friends, I miss those days. We would all load up into my Expedition and head for tornado alley. Now, I call tornado alley my home. What was a hobby has turned into an obsession. I've made new friends, but I still am happy to call Ryan and
Collin friends today. Really, when its all said and done, for me at least, chasing has been about making lifelong friends. But, sadly, life seems to throw everything it has at us to try and take us down.
That phone call from earlier
It was dad letting me know he may have Parkinson's disease. I didn't even know what Parkinson's was. I only knew of some celebrities who had it. It's such a debilitating disease. My dad is a shell of his former self. But one thing will never change. My dad, is one of the most amazing people to ever be in my life. I wish I could go back and redo some of the years before that call. Spend more time with him, have more talks, take him on a chase with me. But I can't go back. All I can do is keep chasing. Keep praying and hoping that dad will suddenly become young again, healthy again. Or, I can be the best father than I can be to my own kids. Who have grown up to become just like their dad. I am so proud of them for who they've become. They've seen many a tornado. They've chased from Iowa to Alabama and many places in between.
Next time you talk to your parents, next time you see them, tell them you love them. If you have bad blood with them, consider forgiving them. They won't be around forever. The storms in life, they come and go just like the storms I chase. Some days are cloudy and others sunny. The storms will always be there, our family won't always be.
