15 June 2023
Perryton, TX to Hugoton, KS
I woke to a moderate risk, the first one I’d seen within chase distance in some time.
We met up at ten and Bill noted that we would have time to chase and then get a head start for our drive back to Denver. The storms were forecast to start near Perryton, so we had to kill time around town.
We started with a park visit and a game of football and then we went to lunch at the Smokehouse.
I asked for my burger to be well done and I should have noted ‘not burned.’
Then we pulled into a silo to wait.
A woman came over from the office, and at first, we thought she was going to ask us to leave but she was curious and ended up giving us a tour of the silo.
We told her severe weather was coming and she said she gets off at five but the silo was pretty well the best storm shelter around if she needed it.
By mid-afternoon, we headed north as storms were visible on the horizon. We made a pit stop at a gas station on the edge of Perryton and the clerk said she hadn’t seen anything about a storm watch and we told her that it was coming. I said she should be getting a warning soon but she was convinced they were only going to get hail.
We went about ten miles or so into Oklahoma and stopped next to a field to watch the storm grow while some said hello to the cows.
After about a half hour or so, we decided to move on but one van wouldn’t start. As they were checking it out, a distant needle tornado started to drop from the approaching storm.
We piled out and watched it form a nice long slender tornado that did pick up dirt on the ground.
It lasted about ten minutes and then the van started
From here, we headed south through Perryton and then east towards Booker. Then we heard that Perryton had been hit by a large wedge tornado.
As we left Booker, we saw what appeared to be two landspouts to the west.
We stopped just as the left one dissipated but the right one was definitely a tornado that started as a land spout.
They noted that there was likely a larger tornado in the rain to the right of the smaller tornado and it was possible it was the one that hit Perryton.
I later heard that a gas station was flattened, but learned it was not the one we had stopped at.
We watched the tornado until it was almost dissipated and headed south and then east.
By now, the storms were picking up speed as they entered Oklahoma. People sitting on the left side of the van were able to see what looked like a stovepipe tornado that was like a ghost in the sky. I saw it but didn’t get a pic.
Bill called it a day and decided to head towards Kansas. We stopped along the way to check out the hail that was reported to be the size of tennis balls. We picked up a few that were almost as large as the ball.
We stopped in Higgins and the local church let us use their washroom. From there, we drove to Liberal for dinner at Wendy’s.
Our hotel was the Best Western in Hugoton.
On our drive back to Denver the next day, everyone was raving about this tour.
It had everything – tornadoes, great lightning, sunsets, large hail, long chases and the mothership supercell. This is especially surprising given the poor setup with the stationary high over the continent.
On to Tour seven.
Bill Reid’s entry for 15 June.
Go to Tour Seven Day One
Go to Table of Contents
