June 8, 1995 - Eastern Texas Panhandle Tornadoes

The chase day started for me in Mangum, Oklahoma. I had spent the night with relatives knowing that this day had a lot of potential to produce significant severe weather in the Texas panhandle. The Mangum stay proved to be important because it was where I filled up with gas. Before the day was over... a violent tornado that struck Pampa, Texas killed the power to a lot of the eastern Texas panhandle... stopping the gas pumps. I was able to finish my chase and make it well back into Oklahoma before needing gas again. There were many chasers that were not as fortunate and ended up stranded before the chase day was over.

When I left Mangum... very strong southeast winds were blowing toward the panhandle and dewpoints were in the mid 70's. The atmosphere was extremely unstable and there would be an upper air disturbance approaching during the afternoon.

Driving through Wheeler, Texas... I noticed explosive thunderstorm development through the haze to the west. Tornado warnings were already out for the city of Pampa as I approached. I was still several miles away when the tornado that moved into the city of Pampa became visible. I stopped at the road to Hoover and watched the event unfold as it approached me.

After the initial tornado left Pampa... a new tornado began to form next to it. The new tornado would be known as the Hoover tornado as it passed very close to the town. This tornado was very impressive and very well may have been stronger than the F4 rated tornado that struck Pampa. Here are views of the approaching tornado getting strong with time: one two three four This is the tornado as it was passing Hoover. The tornado took on an eerie look while ingesting rain-cooled air to the northeast of Hoover. Here is the tornado in it’s rope stage and finally a segmented rope near the end of it’s life.

The day would already have been a great success... but I began hearing reports of a large tornado near McLean and decided to head that way. After the Hoover tornado died... the storm appeared to have trouble getting it’s act together again. I believe it did go on to produce another tornado... but it couldn’t have been nearly as impressive as the storm I made a move toward.

Not long after leaving westbound out of Wheeler... a very large and intense tornado appeared. It changed shapes a few times but always looked large and violent. I watched at least two satellite tornadoes get absorbed into the main tornado as it was near Kellerville. Here - one of the satellite tornadoes is at the right of the image. The tornado ended up passing within one mile of me. As it did... the motion I witnessed was some of the most impressive motion I have ever seen. This remains the case to this day.

Another extremely large tornado would occur near Allison, Texas... but I found myself stuck in heavy rain for the remainder of the chase and couldn’t see it. Still... three strong or violent tornadoes on two very impressive supercells made for one of my best chase days ever.