Drove south from Dalhart to Littlefield this morning for lunch and a data stop to evaluate the progress of the early morning MCS outflow boundary.  I modified my target to an area south of Clovis near the nose of a strong low-level moisture ridge.  The early afternoon activity that fired near Amarillo did catch my attention and nearly made me abort my target to give chase, but the sfc obs and satellite told me to stick to my guns!  I seriously considered trading those guns in after the confirmed tornado report, but I noticed worthwhile TCu and MDT Cu to my NW near Clovis.  I then drove north to Muleshoe and pulled over to monitor the trends with this convection.  To my NE sat the tornadic supercell near Hereford as seen in the picture to the left.  It wasn't until later this evening that I learned it was a very messy supercell not really worth chasing.  Heck, it looked good to me from here and I was ready to give in if the Clovis cell dropped off.

Here's my Cb of interest as viewed to the NW moving out of Clovis.  It maintained this structure for some time before becoming SVR.  Shortly after this the structure quickly went south and remained there for what seemed too long.  I was becoming very frustrated and desperate at this point, so I caved in for the tornadic supercell now moving towards Nazareth, TX...about 40 miles to my NE.  After driving nearly halfway there, I looked back to my west and saw the Clovis storm reorganizing bigtime.  Son of a --!  I couldn't stand being pulled around like this so I made a decision to turn around and stick to it for good.  After re-positioning, the cell began organizing and my frustration quickly melted away.  Isn't it funny how fast your attitude can change while chasing!  :)

Near the city of Earth heading west on HWY 70 to cut south of this supercell.  Good FFD separation from the updraft and even better, there was no deep convection to its south.

North of Sudan observing cyclical wall clouds.  Prior to these shots, rotation slowly evolved at cloud base and even a brief funnel was reported; though it wasn't until the RFD cut moved nearly overhead that I noticed distinct rotation in the wall cloud.  I headed further south and saw the wall cloud to the right take shape just as the sirens in Sudan went off.  Here's some other views (1, 2, 3) of this sick wall cloud as it glided just north of the city.

Just east of Sudan on HWY 84 observing the RFD gust front pull TX dirt skyward.  Precip was now beginning to wrap down in the RFD allowing added moisture for a lower base and wall cloud.

The situation was changing quite rapidly as the wall cloud now hovered a few hundred feet off the ground with slow rotation.  I tried to get north of the city of Amherst, but realized it wasn't going to happen.  I settled for the view here with powerlines (sigh) watching closely for debris under this beast.

It's a very deceptive photo either way you look at it.  Some chasers closer to this did see a brief dust whirl underneath.  I'm still debating this as a possible, incredibly realistic, tornado look-alike.  The definite tornado I observed was about 10 minutes after this shot...continue reading below.  Bottom line, rotation was slow with this lowering, the edges are laminar, RFD is wrapped around, and condensation is >80% of the way down.  Storm reports show this as the tornado north of Amherst.

Looking at this video grab it looks like a no-brainer, but I'm still a bit suspicious.  See this zoomed-in still photo.  I wish I was north of the city to have gotten a better read on this.

Back on HWY 84 and paralleling this supercell as it develops a great tail cloud.

I once again got ahead of the meso to take a dirt road slightly north and observe this impressive wall cloud.  While turning my car around, I saw a tight debris circulation directly below the rotating wall cloud...a definite tornado!  At the time I didn't recall seeing visible condensation below the wall cloud, though review of the video w/contrast adjustments showed a thin filament of dirt or condensation from the ground on up (see image on right).  Either way, the vortex was weak and remained in place for about 20 seconds before dissipating.  I quickly called NWS-LBB to leave a message and got the heck out of there as the RFD was already beginning to bear down on me.

Back on HWY 84 and looking at the convergence maxima to my NW.  This was absolutely gorgeous to watch move along the highway!   I decided to get off of the highway and away from the hordes of chasers in favor of a nearby dirt road to shoot south a couple miles.  It really seemed as though the meso was turning a bit south of southeast....need to check the radar archives to confirm this.

Looking NNW at precip wrapping around the meso and wall cloud.  I continued south on this dirt road at a good clip to keep ahead of the surging outflow periodically looking back at what was left of the wall cloud.  The image on the right shows dirt getting kicked up along the outflow close to the wall cloud.

Crap, this chase is over!  Tumbleweed 2-3' thick were blocking the road for about 20 yards from a flood channel the night before.  I considered getting out and clearing a path, but there was no time and the mud was too deep.  I quickly turned around and shot west on another dirt road a short ways back to avoid the brunt of the RFD core.  The outer edge did nab me, but thankfully the large hail stayed to the north and east.

Beautiful views of the flanking line and main turrets to this historic hail-producing supercell.  Believe it or not, this was the third hailstorm to hit Lubbock today day with hailstones 2" and larger!  After shooting these and getting a timelapse, I made tracks back to HWY 84 and arrived in Lubbock around 2100L just as some SVR back-building convection was moving out of the city.