30.04.2025: Wichita Falls, TX - Jacksboro - Weatherford - Hillsboro and back (380 miles)
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After a good nights sleep, although slightly interrupted by repeated thunder, it is time to
check the weather situation: First thing that catches our eye are dozens of green polygons all over the place. They are flood and flash flood warnings that are triggered after several rounds of thunderstorms in the past few days. The soil is drenched with water, which is a good thing for us, because that's what clouds and storms are made of! So let's get on a short drive around the block and watch the nearby Wichita River. Yep, it is full, to say the least:  In fact, it is about to flood Lucy Park, a nice recreational area under normal circumstances. But, as you, dear readers, already know: We are not here for normal circumstances!   Same park the next morning at crest:       Wow, some bigger tree trunks are foloating out there! We decide to drive a bit south to check if more areas are affected by flooding and experience very similar conditions at Sewell Park in Jacksboro: That drive really shows us how full of water everything is after several days of storms. This could feed back into potential storms in the next days and weeks. A humid ground also helps bringing convective cloud bases down, something that storm chasers love! We then spot some ongoing storms further south towards Hillsboro but never really get ahead of them because they are connected to a cold front that is racing south with the same speed as us. So we decide to head back north. After a while, not too far from Wichita Falls, we spot a beautiful shelf cloud approaching from the west:  It belongs to an outflow boundary from earlier storms over west Texas and looks so nice in the evening light:   The radar image shows the nearly perfect bowing structure:  Short time lapse of the appreach. Shortly after that sequence, we get some intense rain and wind up to 60 mph, so we stop and let it pass, so that we can continue our drive back. What a nice ending of today's weather day! |