Day 16, May 30th 2002

Route: From Columbus, TX to South Padre Island, TX.
Highlights: Record heat (106F), a sand storm and rapidly southward moving severe storm with tornado warning at the Mexican border.
Text: Eric Terpstra

Today there are only two WeatherBug storm chasers: Eric and Coen. The other guys Rob and Jules are on their way to New York where they will be on national television Friday morning to tell about our WeatherBug StormChase 2002. Today is another day with a chance of tornadoes, although - again - things do no look too promising. We even chase a storm a ways into Mexico where it dies.

Our plans to head for New Orleans to have some vacation time are abandoned as soon as we see the new weather maps. It looks like there could be some action in South Texas. So, we start the van and drive to San Antonio. There we see a lot of mid level cloud overhead. The satellite image tells us that more is coming from the north. As storm initiation should occur in an area with sunshine we drive south to Laredo.

The temperature is soaring well into the 90s. Just south of Laredo it is hot, hot, hot! We measure a temperature of 106F, Coen's personal record. Meanwhile, a severe storm has developed just north of the Mexican border. We calculate that we won't be able to make that one. However, another is just developing to the east of us and about an hour later we are at the right spot. We observe some rotation as the storm slowly moves to the south.

Then suddenly the storm intensifies very quickly and we have to go south fast. We almost drive into large hail but happily there is an escape route east. Driving south along the Mexican border we are hit by a sand storm originating from the storm's outflow. Sand is sweeping up about half a mile and the visibility is close to zero as it hits our van with 40 mph. We keep on driving fast and about half an hour later we are close to the storm again. We see a beautiful rainbow but the interesting part - possible tornado - of the storm is rain wrapped. As we drive through Rio Grande City a tornado warning is issued right for the spot in front of us at the Mexican border line. We try to see if there is a tornado, but we do not see it; there is too much rain and hail falling.

In the evening we decide to go to South Padre Island which is supposed to be the 3rd best beach in the US. We will see. It is very doubtful that there will be any chasing tomorrow, but we have seen that things can change in a moment.