Report - April 22 eastern TX panhandle Tornadoes

For about a week or so, a large upper trough had been forecast to slowly eject out over the plains 4/22-4/23 with ample moisture return finally making its way northward before the system could impact the plains. Morning analysis showed deep moisture (low 60’s) along the edge of the caprock in the eastern TX panhandle with low clouds slowly eroding. The chase crew left Norman around 10am and headed straight west on I-40 towards the panhandle. A short stop at taco bell in Shamrock and a some data checking and we moved a bit further west towards McClean around 1pm or so. Some storms were already firing in sw KS and northern TX/OK panhandles with growing cumulus southward in the south TX panhandle and along I-27. One confluent zone in Armstrong county was creating enough surface convergence for some growing Cb. We moved south to Clarendon and watched some attempts before a couple of storms formed. It didn’t take long for the storms to exhibit mid level rotation. We went north out of Clarendon and watched as the northern of the two storms quickly became tornadic and produced a large barrel tornado off in the distance. We stopped and watched the end of this tornado as another formed in the new wall cloud as a cone and was on the ground for some time. Sean Waugh, yelled out as another tornado from the storm to the south rapidly produced a tall stovepipe tornado off in the distance near Goodnight, TX. We watched both tornadoes from a distance. The leading storm’s tornado eventually dissipated while the southern storm (Goodnight) kept churning growing into a tall stovepipe/cone before roping out after nearly 20 minutes on the ground. We bailed north to catch up with the leading storm on I40 then eventually retreated west again to catch up with the cell near Alanreed TX where it produced 2-3 tornados north of the interstate. After the show was done we made our way back east towards OK as most of the storms became linear in nature. All of these pics are video grabs.