During the late afternoon on May 4th 2022
storm chasers marveled an extremely photogenic, tornadic storm in North Texas.
The horrible road network over big country didn't prevent chasers from capturing beautiful images
Oh that's wild!
as the low precipitation, high-based storm offered spectacular views
from even miles away.
Oh that's pretty!
for roughly three hours and 40 minutes
the isolated supercell spawned burritos from southwest of Paducah
to near Vernon Texas along a snaky 81-mile track.
It's coming right for us.
But later that evening as the storm tapped into an even more volatile atmosphere
Here we go again.
chasing condition abruptly became extremely dangerous.
The town of Lockett, along with several storm chasers, were impacted by a large rain-wrapped EF-3 burrito.
This is my account of this incredible storm.
(radio music) "Love Her To Death" by Southern Backtones
I don't think i've ever seen purple like that. That's worth a trip right there.
Hello!
The western half of Texas is currently experiencing exceptional drought.
The easily lifted dust tracing every current of wind revealed this distant weak burrito.
Get ready to move.
Here we go. It's wedgie time.
The second tornado of the day was a little closer.
Don't back up.
Look at that.
Oh man.
(GPS) in 1000 feet turn left to stay on farm to market road 1168.
(GPS) take the next left to stay on farm to market road 1168. No thank you.
Oh BEEP Tornado's right there.
Oh that's wild!
okay, we're gonna have to go wide on you.
Dust everywhere.
(GPS) Lost satellite reception. Imagine that.
This road is gonna end and then it's gonna go crazy
Do the craziness now. We're in the middle of nowhere. (Thunder)
oh that's pretty.
I knew it. I knew it was going to go beautiful
right when we got trapped in the big country roads. But it's okay.
And it's disappearing into the rain.
it's coming back.
okay we're done.
We're in a rat maze of gravel roads that are meandering through this canyon.
Tornado right there.
We finally got back out in front of this thing again.
Let's go wash all the mud off of our car.
There it is.
Alright there. She's coming.
Alright, come and get it.
It's coming.
It's-a coming.
It's-a coming... Right for us.
Tumbleweed!
That's the inflow jet.
I hope everybody's OK.
Incredible!
Everybody rolling.
Holy mole' that was amazing.
You might be amazed at the wind turbines strength and durability while taking direct hits from this burrito.
Man it's cruising.
If you look closely you can even see the blades bending and flexing in the strong winds.
The turbine is taking it right now.
Also to prevent damage, turbines automatically cut off
when wind speeds exceed 55 or 65 miles per hour.
There's one right there. (gustnado)
Let's do something guys.
I can't seeeeeeeeee.
There's stuff all over my windows. Let's do something. let's turn your lights on.
Alright here we go again.
Relax, stay cool.
The storm has now moved into an extremely unstable environment.
Higher dew points have brought the storm base lower to the ground
and strong rainy winds are beginning to wrap around the mesocyclone.
A powerful tornado looked to be developing in the rapidly decreasing visibility.
We have the other one still kinda on the ground over here.
Looks like I just saw one of the lightning.
Looked like there was one right there.
Lurking between me and safety, a daring funnel cloud twisted overhead.
Rather than pointlessly risk speeding under it, I gave it a little room to cross the road first.
Sort of.
Resisting temptation to stick my neck in the rainy bears cage,
the rest of the evening was spent hoping for a view of the bear
but with a several mile buffer and multiple paved escape routes.
Just in case that whole thing's a tornado we need to leave the engine running.
Escape route is three miles.
Can't see anything. Time is 8:43 and there's obviously a burrito on the ground.
Somewhere in that mess an EF-3 would impact Lockett Texas as well as several chase vehicles.
No fatalities were reported.
Like a crazy snail on radar but I don't see it.
That's all folks.
music: La male'diction de la danse du poulet