Giant Hail in Central Texas

Chase Recap:

I knew this day would be a likely hail/structure day, with temperature/dewpoint spreads being a little high and DCAPE values also being a little high. SPC had a blanket 2/5% over much of Central and North Texas Nevertheless, I headed down I-35 through Fort Worth and decided to head west on I-20. Eventually, I would bail off I-20 at Texas Highway 16 and head south through De Leon and Comanche before stopping in Brownwood.

While storms were ongoing along I-20, the surface boundary was sagging south on radar. All of the storms were behind the boundary, which pushed south throughout the afternoon across Central Texas. The best storms would be south of that boundary, at least for tornado potential.

SPC Mesoanalysis – 20Z/3pm CDT update

Storms firing near San Angelo

As I was hanging tight in Brownwood, I was watching storms firing near San Angelo on satellite and radar. I decided to drop down 377 to Brady well ahead of the storm. Unfortunately, there was road work going on with a pilot car on 377 northeast of Brady. I lost at least 15 minutes in this ordeal, and found myself in Brady with a large supercell bearing down on me.

Hail south of Brady Texas

I found myself trying to escape Brady south on US87. In retrospect, I should have taken highway 71 but baseballs to softballs were falling and I was trying to escape.

I didn’t trust FM1222 to make it east in time, so I continued south on 87 to Mason. I had a moment to stop and get a view of the storm from this vantage point.

From Mason, I headed east on highway 29 towards Llano. I would stop to try and get a view. Unfortunately, the terrain is pretty awful around there.

I continued southeast on 71 to Horsehoe Bay and dropped south on 281 to Johnson City. Reports of 5+ inch hail were coming out of the storm, so I kept heading south. I tried to head east at Blanco, but rapidly expading/building storms made me decide to bail back west. I let the storm pass in front of me.

I headed back to Blanco and north on 281 to US290. I stopped for food in Austin and then headed north on 35. I got back to DFW metro a bit after midnight and decided to get a room before heading north for Auroras the next day.