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May 18 - 22
The peak experience of this tour occurs
May 20. At suppertime, I note an apparent convergence zone, as a bubbly cumulus
street takes position near Amarillo. A cold front is dropping from the NW
towards us, and a very minor dewpoint change resides in our area.
We visit the friendly staff of the Amarillo NWS for a
radar check. They assure us that there is very little chance of anything
interesting-- perhaps a scattered thundershower in our area. But my intuition
says otherwise, so we stay local and watch the sky, with the aim of possibly
driving about 90 miles north towards the front.
Things build south towards us, and towards sunset, we
drive about 20 miles NE of town to savor high based CB towers, splendid
rainbows, stunning cloud contrasts of black, white and blue sky, sheets of
sunlit raincurtains, and occasional bolts of lightning.
At dusk, one lone tower just SW of us suddenly comes to
life with licks of lightning that look like flames of fire dancing across its
base and sides. I have never seen anything like this in my life. It literally
looks like the cloud is on fire, as continuous sheets of lightning ripple forth,
yet the tops have not yet built super high. The cloud top continues to ascend,
and soon loops of lightning branch start poking below the cloud base. Eventually
the first cloud to ground bolts leap forth and a mature storm births itself into
being.
The NWS calls a severe storm warning for the Amarillo
area, and we are treated to a breath taking show of nonstop lightning for the
next 2.5 hours! The storm core moves over us with brief cloudburst rains and
gusty winds, but large hail stays to our SW. My clients savor lightning that
they have not seen in their entire lives of weather watching.
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