Insane Lightning and Tornado near Aspermont, TX

Chase Recap:

I woke up around noon on Saturday and didn’t really plan to chase, but had been looking at Sunday in West Texas (near Lubbock) and thought I’d try and make a two day chase out of things since the SPC had outlooked some of the area between OKC Metro and West Texas.

I looked some things over and got my gear together and headed out around 2 pm on Saturday afternoon with an original target of Seymour, TX which is where I made it to. The cumulus were starting to really take off in the Seymour area which was both apparent in person and somewhat on visible satellite.

I headed into Seymour to get gas at the allsups and some beverages and snacks since I knew it could be a late night drive to Lubbock. While I was backing out, someone backed into me. Fortunately the damage was almost non existent.

Meanwhile, a storm had finally started to go up near Seymour and was moving to the northeast. I followed it up US277 to Dundee before it finally crapped out due to the cap.

I knew pretty much right away that I needed to bail on that area and head southwest towards the cell down near the Snyder area. It was looking decent on satellite and radar, and was completely isolated and was on the way to tomorrows target.

It was about 100 miles from Dundee to Aspermont, but I made decent time and got there in a little over an hour and a half just before sundown. This storm was looking beastly on radar and was producing some of the most amazing lightning I had ever seen.

I headed SW out of Aspermont on FM610 and almost smacked a deer while I was trying to get out of the way of the storm. I ended up meeting up with David on the side of FM610.

We spent the next 30-60 minutes shooting some of the most incredible lightning photos I have ever shot in my life. Definitely a few good shots.

We were pretty fixated on lightning and the shots we were getting, and didn’t notice the storm had begun to wrap up and RFD was blowing out to the south of us. A quick tornado spun up in the field next to us not more than a mile or two away.

Eventually we had to move a bit further up the road, and the lightning died out. We decided to call it a night and head back west to David’s house to get ready for Sunday.