[Part 3 of 4] As the big Tulia-to-Wayside HP supercell churned northeastward, the somewhat conical, somewhat blocky, rapidly rotating wall cloud that had followed the HP rear-flank surge northward wrapped back into the larger circulation, tightened essentially to tornadic strength on its own merit, and ultimately merging with the original mesocyclone. The northern part of the surge now was represented by a similarly strangely illuminated, large, ragged area of lowered clouds at middle to left, with its own areas of concentrated cloud-base rotation. Meanwhile the tail-cloud features kept feeding into the backside of the broader mesocyclonic orbit with ferocious speed. This was a complex process with assorted vortices of multiple scales and velocities, very difficult to classify simply, that straddled the sometimes blurry line between mesocyclone and tornado! Wet fields prevented easy lofting of dust by these circulations, making precise visual tornado identification even more ambiguous. Very rapid cloud-base rotation and brief, wispy spinups were apparent under the central part of all this mess during this stage, and OU RaXPol radar parked a couple miles to my east (rear) affirmed at least two brief tornadoes, though they were very smudgy, low in contrast and difficult to make out with eyeballs. With the front edge of the bowing surge about to hit my location, I bailed east quickly… [Go to part 4]
4 WSW Vigo Park TX (7 May 19) Looking WNW
34.645, -101.5644