Despite being unable to chase much of the afternoon, I was still able to keep an eye on the supercell that formed over north Fort Worth. In fact, upon leaving to make an appointment, I noted a very impressive tower overhead, with an explosive updraft and broad, dark base. About a half hour later, that tower became the Fort Worth supercell.

From my initial vantage point near downtown Fort Worth, I was able to watch the storm as it chugged southeast through North Richland Hills and Hurst. About the time the largest hail reports began coming in from that area (3.50", or baseball), the storm began backbuilding along the cold front/boundary in the direction of downtown. At one point, a new tower went up directly overhead, dropping some light precip and small hail before being pulled into the main storm. Even though it was fairly high-based, some rotation was actually visible underneath.

As the storm peaked, hail began to fall out of the backside of the updraft from fairly high up north of downtown Fort Worth. This made for an interesting sight, and I'm sure it startled whoever ended up getting hailed on as a result. I'd be curious to know how large that area of hail ended up being and how much of it made it to the ground before being pulled back into the updraft.

Once I was finally able to break free, I headed west on I-30 in an attempt to get in front of a new storm approaching Benbrook. That storm collapsed, however, so I stopped at a high point in west Fort Worth to observe the original storm once again as it moved into northern Arlington. I saw some nice storm structure and the occasional interesting feature, but being behind everything, the updraft base was blocked by precip.

I contemplated jumping on I-20 to get in front of the storm, but not really knowing the storm motion at the time and not really being chase-ready (no maps, for example), I opted to return home.

Once home, I watched the storm fizzle out on radar while a newer, better-looking supercell near Lake Whitney stole the spotlight. Later, after dinner, I snapped a few photos of storms between Stephenville and Waco at sunset.

Photos are available here.