Severe Storm Photography from Spring 2003
All photos copyrighted by Dave Chapman
May 15th: Intense supercell near Stratford, Texas
| May 15th: Just southeast of Dalhart, a storm is developing ahead of a strong upper low. Dust fills the air due to 40 mph winds in the dry northern Panhandle. This is the view looking east. |
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| This is the view looking north. The storm had moved further north than I realized. I make matters worse by missing the northern road that would have taken me to the heart of the storm. |
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| I catch up with the supercell again near Stratford. This is the view from just east of town, looking north at the storm just a couple of miles away. Though obscured by blowing dust, this is an impressive storm and quite awe-inspiring. |
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| View looking northwest. Visibility is so poor that I don't see the tornado that is on the ground at this time. From other chaser reports, it appears that the tornado is only a few miles northwest of my position. (As I drive, I actually see a hazy outline, but with no clear view and no photographic evidence, it feels more like a missed opportunity). |
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| New convection near Texoma at sunset. Despite the impressive supercell and vague tornado sighting, today still ranks as a classic near-miss, where a slight variation in my road choices would have made all the difference. In fact, the entire month of May is a series of tornado-misses (see "Other storms, near-misses and busts"), which would have been very humbling except that I never thought I was that good a storm chaser in the first place. |
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2003 Storm Pages:
Dave Chapman's Storm Chasing and Outdoor Photo Galleries