26 April 2023
Shamrock to Brownwood, TX
After a hot cup of morning tea, I called shotgun and we headed south from Shamrock to what looked to be the best prospects for the tour (not counting day 0).
We got to Clyde just east of Abilene for lunch at Thirsty’s Beer Barn.
It’s a drive-thru beer and spirits barn that also serves BBQ.
I got the Bulldog fries with brisket and cheese.
Storms were starting to initiate early in the afternoon near Abilene and as far east as Waco. A tornado watch was issued for the entire region.
We started with a system south of Clyde that looked promising.
It started to fizzle, so we moved south and stopped near Belle Plain to watch the clouds billow.
We moved with the system until one woman, who wasn’t feeling well, said she wanted to go to a hotel. With the help of Martin and Kim, who were in the area, they were able to get her and her sister a room at the Best Western in Comanche. We heard later that she was sleeping, and given the storms were not far from that area, and with no prospects tomorrow, I suspected we’d be able to pick them up in the morning, which we did.
We continued on and stopped to watch a wall cloud.
It soon became obvious the storms were turning into a long line of cells which is usually not great for tornado formation. There were a number of individual tornado warnings but none formed anywhere in Texas.
We stopped to watch one storm approach just north of Goldthwaite. It produced a nice wall cloud but not much lightning.
We stayed at least twenty minutes when Bill said it was about to get cold. Sure enough, within a minute, the cold outflow hit our location like a train.
We packed up and moved east to Evant and then west, stopping a few times but being chased away by the rain at each stop. The colours were great.
We looked for somewhere to watch the lightning at sunset but too much rain chased us to Goldthwaite where we stopped at La Hacienda for Mexican dinner, and the sombrero wearing cat.
The cat wasn’t hungry. It was stuffed.
We got rooms at the Comfort Inn in Brownwood.
Which wasn’t far from Comanche.
Bill Reid’s entry for 26 April.
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