An elephant-trunk tornado near McLean, Texas.

This was almost the chase that didn’t happen. My car needed a crucial part after overheating, and it wasn’t available anywhere near where I was staying in Perryton, Texas, so I paid a courier to have it delivered – and the wrong part arrived, killing our chance to chase a day with solid tornado potential. Fortunately, saving the day for Kathy Velasquez and myself, our friends Matt Crowther, Betsy Abrams and Chuck Fallis saw our stranded status and picked us up. The chase was on, and we saw a smorgasbord of storms – a tornado, hail, supercells, and sadly, tornado damage.

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