June 2023 was an unusual month, featuring multiple days of supercells in central Texas, well south of the climatological norm for that time of year. The moisture (and haze!) almost always is there in June, within a couple hundred miles of the Gulf—just not the strength of flow aloft. In this period, we could thank an unusually intense, northward-shifted, deep, mid/upper-level, westerly, subtropical jet, along with a weaker cap than usual for the time of year, helping storms that fired off the dryline mature into supercells. This was one. In its early stages, with midlevel rotation cranking up hard, the storm was moving from the southeastern fringe of the Great Plains south of Abilene into the limestone scarps of the Edwards Plateau near Brady. Storm observing in the Edwards Plateau, and especially its deeply stream-dissected central to eastern portion known as the Hill Country, is challenging, as vantages are only occasional and atop hills wherever safe pull-offs exist. This was one. We knew the beautiful specimen was going to right-turn southeast toward Brady, to our south (left), making remaining time here quite short.
4 SSE Lohn TX (12 Jun 23) Looking WSW
31.2674, -99.3825