Waiting in Carlsbad the T.I.V. and several Doppler on Wheels trucks that were a part of the Vortex II team were parked in the downtown Walmart, they attracted quite a crowd.  When we headed out for our chase they had not yet departed. The storm looked ok but it was quite clear that it would not be anything special.

Onto the chase, no we didn’t get a tornado but we got a good shelf cloud and another core punch. We got some video of the storm from afar but decided that since it was not going to drop a tornado and the hail was rather small that intercepting it on a county road was the best course of action. After catching back up to the core on County Rd. 13 we got some prelude photos that can be seen in the gallery and then the punch video that I have to edit still.

After we emerged from the core and continued down the road we were treated to a good lightning show and actually saw a cactus on the side of the road that had been struck by lightning and was on fire. We waited there for a few minutes to ensure that the fire was not going to spread to the nearby grasses and more cacti before calling and end to the chase day.