March 8th, 2011 N Texas Storm Pictures

First lightning shot of 2011!

   Another chase opportunity before heading home for spring break.  Headed out from Norman a little after noon (later than planned) and set a target of Sherman, TX to allow a little cushion to the west, since I expected storms to initiate just west of I-35 in N Central Texas.  Because of the late start, had to play catch-up with the storms as they developed slightly earlier than I had anticipated.  Once I finally caught up, it didn't take long for stuff to get interesting.

First hailstone to hit me in the noggin in 2011

   The first storm I got on was actually originally just a core punch to get into position for a more southern cell I was interested in.  Shortly after I began driving into the storm, the NWS slapped a Severe Thunderstorm Warning on it.  It produced gobs and gobs of dime to nickel sized hail, and torrential downpours.  After a while, stuff started looking more interesting on radar, so I decided to stick with it for a bit.  Eventually, I got into what there was of a "bears cage," and found a decent lowering.  It, however, did not appear to have much, if any, rotation at this point.  Within ten minutes of that, there was a rapidly intensifying couplet nearby, and giant hail began to fall.  The stone pictured above is the one that hit me in the head while trying to pick up a bigger stone from my open car door.  Some were around 2.5 to 3 inches, judging by what I could see on the ground.  One managed to put a small crack in my windshield, but luckily no more than just a small crack.  Also experienced some extreme winds, likely associated with a tornadic circulation/RFD, just to the west of Paris, TX.  There was a bit of damage done in the area of Paris to a small farm house and a barn. At this point I decided it would be too dangerous to continue being there was no paved roads to get further south of the storm, and it appeared to be completely rain-wrapped. If storms had stayed more discrete, there is no question in my mind that there could have been several more tornadoes, and a much better chase opportunity.