Born to Chase: Clovis Monster

A long wait in an Allsups parking started the day. A semi-difficult forecast led me to the small town of San Jon, New Mexico; an old Route 66 town. It was a waiting game from here since the previous day's chase was not a far drive. Towers started to pop up to the north and exploded into a giant, slow moving supercell. As this storm walked across the landscape, it brought insane inflow winds topping 60 miles per hour (100 km/hr). Once up on the Caprock Escarpment, the storm ramped up and immediately took over any new storms trying to develop ahead of it. A large wedge tornado spawned in this high precipitation beast and was not visible due to the incredible amount of dust, rain and hail near it. Far from the edge, my car door was very hard to open due to the insane winds blowing into the storm. This supercell, to date, is the most powerful storm I have ever witnessed. This would mark the beginning of "The Great Clovis Summer Camp of 2023".

This photo was taken on May 24, 2023 near Grady, New Mexico.