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Afterwards, we stood in the parking lot and stared at small towers going up just to our west and southwest. The one to our west formed a small, dark base. We headed toward it on the Interstate. After about ten miles, we noticed that it was a very minor, uninteresting towering cumulus. But, there was something poking its head out to our northwest, from behind these small towers. We traveled a few more miles to our west, and then we saw it! A rock-hard, mature updraft tower glimmered in the sun like a marble sculpture. Its anvil was hard with blue sky above. It was no more than 30 miles to our northwest! We exited the interstate at Alanreed and proceeded northward on Highway 291.
Along the way, we tuned in KGRO-AM Radio from Pampa. Broadcaster Darrell Sehorn was on the air reporting a tornado on the ground in or near Southwest Pampa from his mobile unit (Darrell did a great job by being the first media to warn the public about the tornado). As soon as we arrived on top of the Caprock near Lefors, we saw a beautiful, trunk-shaped tornado on the ground near Pampa.
We stopped 2 miles southeast of Pampa at 4:40 PM and began photographing the twister as it moved across the western edge of the city. At 4:50 PM, a small, intense tornado touched down about one mile to our NNW for approximately 30 seconds. This brief tornado's parent circulation persisted east of town while the Pampa tornado churned through the city. It would eventually spawn the larger tornado that passed near Hoover. Just a few minutes later, the Pampa twister began to exit the northern portions of town. At that time, we hopped into the Jeep and drove northeast to a location a few miles south of Hoover. There, we watched a new tornado begin to widen about 3 miles to our northwest and west of the prison. Just behind, or north of the prison, the tornado reached its widest form. It had become a large, violent frustum-shaped funnel slinging a wide debris cloud toward its rear flank. We shot additional video and stills and headed north to intercept the tornado. Our intentions were to stop about a mile short of its path and photograph it one last time as it crossed the county road we were on.
Unfortunately, the road dead-ended at the edge of a canyon two miles short of the twister. However, we were able to see the entire funnel from our high angle as it raked through the Red Deer Creek Valley below. We headed northeast up Highway 60 toward Miami with the tornado to our north still in the valley. On a hill south of Miami, we paused to watch the tornado become rain-wrapped to our west. At that moment, Al Moller and Chuck Doswell pulled up followed by Sam in his big red Ram Van. We stood on the hill watching a ghost-like funnel disappear in the rain. We all drove north to Miami in hopes of seeing more tornadoes from the storm. Herbert and I drove northwest toward Central Roberts County to watch a new supercell with a beautiful rain-free base rotate over the rolling prairie. As we watched, NWS in Amarillo issued a tornado warning for the storm. We looked to our southeast and could see the other big supercell in the sun near McLean. We pulled our hair out for about a minute trying to decide whether or not to go for that storm. We agreed that "one bird in hand is worth two in the bush," so to speak, and stayed on the Roberts County storm. That storm to the southeast produced several strong to violent tornadoes. Our storm just spun until we eventually got dizzy and left. We headed northeast and attempted to intercept the reported Allison "monster tornado" from the north. We encountered heavy hail and low visibility and turned around for safety reasons. We knew it would be tough. In my disappointment, Herbert said "when a man finds a gold mine, he stops digging." That Austrian saying meant we should be happy about the spectacular Pampa/Hoover storm we had seen just a few hours earlier and not worry about what we missed. After dark, we went back into Pampa to get gas and something to drink. Power was on and the town seemed to be doing fine although the western edge of the city was heavily damaged. The night was quiet and still in Pampa. It was difficult to believe, that just hours earlier, a violent Texas tornado was tearing through this sleepy little Panhandle town.
Photo copyright Martin Lisius.
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