ME and SCL Chaser Marcus Diaz bags tornado near Amarillo April 20

http://www.stormchaselive.com and MesoExtreme Storm Chaser Marcus Diaz, along with Storms Chaser Wesley Luginbyhl and Brady Kendrick, bagged a cone tornado near Amarillo, TX at approximately 7:03 p.m. CDT. 

Here is a quick look at the radar image exhibiting the classic hook echo and meso markers SW of Amarillo (AMA):

GRLevel 3 Image Courtesy of Storm Chaser Trevor Black

StormLab 4.0 SRV Image Courtesy of Forecaster/Storm Chaser Scott Metsker

Marcus will have some pics up later tonight.  In a brief phone interview a few moments ago, Marcus said he was very excited about bagging the unexpected tornado.  ME and SCL StormChaser Steve Polley was nowcasting for Marcus from Cameron, MO.  Excellent job fellas!!!! 

Brief Environment Discussion:

The storm originated in an enivronment with dewpoints in the upper 40's to lower 50's NW of AMA.  The storm propagated to the SSE into mid 50's to near 60 F dewpoints.  Surface temps were in the upper 60's to near 70 in the western panhandle region and the mid 50's to near 60 in the eastern panhandle region.  This baroclinic zone (aka battle zone between air masses) along with marginal shear, decent moisture and an increasing nocturnal LLJ at 850mb of 25 to 30 kts were the factors that played into the evolution of this tornadic supercell.  In addition, the storm moved to the SSE into more moist air, CAPE values were approaching 2250 J/kg and SRH was approaching 300m2/s2. 

Data for discussion obtained from the RUC per F5 data and SPC MesoAnalysis Page.