Storms Brewing in Shiner, TX, StormTours.com

Storms Brewing in Shiner, TX

When: 2007 MAY 10
Where: Shiner, TX
Info: Tour 3
Images: 5
Video: No

Storm Chase Photos

Tour Director's Field Report

If you didn't catch the pun in the title, Shiner, Texas is home to the Shiner Bock beer brewery. However, on this day there was more brewing in Shiner than just beer. We caught a nice little storm in the afternoon near I-10 and followed it south through the town of Shiner before it finally became outflow dominant.

When the storms initially fired, most of the action was over San Antonio, TX and one storm was near Lockhart, TX. I noticed another storm chasing company had intercepted the cells near San Antonio, but at the time I believe this was a bad idea because of the rush hour traffic in a major metro area (doesn't usually mix well with storm chasing) and more importantly the storms over the metro area were being enhanced by heating from the large amounts of concrete you find in a major city...so as soon as the storms moved out of the city - they died out.

But, the cell near Lockhart was different because it was over a rural area (without the "city heat" effect) and it was holding together, it was already anchored on two boundaries that were easily identified in satellite imagery - so that became our target storm. We didn't have to go far because we had been sitting in this general area off the Interstate for most of the day waiting for it fire.

No tornado from this storm but it did take on some nice structure and produced winds in excess of 60 mph as well as some quarter sized hail. Not too bad for a day with little to no hope for severe weather.