Every year, unique moments in storm observing present themselves, but this was on a different level. As the clear slot cut around the mesocyclone of this small but tornadic supercell, and it emerged from even murkier haze to the southwest, I could spot a narrow cone with ground contact. This was the “Hart tornado”, which came close to a West Texas Mesonet station at the time the site recorded an 87-mph gust. A small, distant, low-contrast tornado—yes, been there, seen that. The dilemma: there was no hope to get closer for a better view. I had to stay right there, settling for this perspective. That’s because my vehicle had been stuck for half an hour in a muddy V-shaped ditch due to a simple, clumsy reversal error on my part. I had spent much of the intervening time digging hundreds of pounds of mud and dirt off the roadside to make the slope more shallow in ultimately futile hope of unaided egress. The irony? This wasn’t even the supercell I was trying to observe when parking. The earlier storm in the chain was much closer, with a disorganized mesocyclone passing just a mile or two to the west. With both me and vehicle coated in mud, my reaction was less one of surprise or excitement than, “Oh, looky there, it’s producing. Guess I could use a quick break. I’ll try to shoot it, I suppose.” Then right after it dissipated, I was right back to digging.
8 ESE Nazareth TX (13 Mar 21) Looking WSW
34.5284, -101.9553