5/17/2021 Sterling City, TX tornado

Day featured a hail-focused moderate risk with a broad brushed 10% tornado threat across the lower Caprock/Panhandle region of west Texas. We targeted the area west of Lamesa down to Midland, hanging out north of Midland-Odessa waiting for convective initiation. Storms formed near Midland and slowly strengthened with left splits dominant early on. Other storms formed north up near Seminole to Plains. We slid east keeping both storm clusters in reach, while at the same time crossing the path of a left split to check for hail. We found 3”+ hail laying across the road near Lenorah, TX. Took some pics before finally committing to the cluster near Big Spring. Wrapped around Big Spring to intercept the storm south of town as the radar velocity ramped up quickly. Finally got south of the storms and found the one on the right with a long and linear base with another, westerly cell featuring a nice wall cloud and eventual funnel. We slid south toward Sterling City, and pulled over just as the storm to the right got a nice cut. As we watched, the low-levels wrapped up and produced a nice truncated tornado that had multi vortices under it at times. The most dramatic aspect was the collar cloud and full visual of the RFD wrapping around the storm. Could not head east due to the lack of roads, so just took in the sight. After the tornado concluded, slide east and north of Sterling City where we enjoyed the structure. Eventually, the storm lost most of its structure. Overnighted in San Angelo, TX.