Meteorological Breakdown: The Hawley Tornado and Other Mesoscale Days in Texas - May 2-4, 2024

In-depth meteorological breakdown of the photogenic yet destructive EF3 tornado that slabbed homes and tossed vehicles in Hawley, TX, on May 2, 2024. This tornado occurred in an environment that, at first glance, did not appear supportive of significant tornadoes. However, closer inspection reveals some unique occurrences that helped fuel this tornado, which we'll discuss in detail in this video. We'll also touch on the following couple of days, which both featured strong tornadoes in similar environments: May 3 saw strong tornadoes that exhibited some impressive behavior near Robert Lee, TX, and Fort Stockton magic was alive and well on May 4, as a single supercell spawned at least 5 tornadoes south of town.

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Contents

0:00 Introduction
1:11 May 2 (Hawley) breakdown
14:26 May 3 (Robert Lee) breakdown
18:06 May 4 (Fort Stockton) breakdown
20:54 Wrap-up

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Resources

[ConvectiveChronicles]

Apologies for the editing error at 9:16. Looks like one of the radar files got corrupted and failed to upload with the video.

[zachsteiner]

Ooh my buddy is going to be excited for this one. He chased the Hawley tornado and he has been baffled as to how a powerful tornado was spawned with such a crosswise wind profile. He’s shown me that hodograph a couple times with a puzzled look. 😆

[peachxtaehyung]

I remember that robert lee tornado watching it's track was CRAZY. It just kept doing circles lol

[runt]

I don't see anyone mentioning it yet, but you have a small editing mistake at 9:16 that might have some personal information on it. You may want to fix and reupload!

(Still working through the video, very good so far, just wanted to note this for you!)

[scrsYT]

Wicked stuff.

Those northern cells fizzling out almost got me. I was targeting those, then as they dissipated I began to move south towards the southern cells, only for the northern mode to fire up again. I made the tough decision to target north.

Heard about Anson on the way there and thought I had missed it. But as soon as I pulled up to Hawley, within a minute a lowering formed, served on a platter right to me.

Mesoscale magic is crazy stuff

[danielbaetens]

I remember watching Freddy McKinney stream and I saw him helping a family I'm so thankful they all survived Freddy is a hero. That was the most beautiful tornado I have ever seen but also what it did to the family was terrifying

[MightyMuffins]

Damn I never commented on this. Blame the work schedule I been on. PRAISE THE 5% TORNADO RISKS! This was a pretty impressive tornado stretch but the Hawley tornado was one of the neat looking tornadoes of the 2024 season. The set up for that how you got the storm interactions and the fact how it all came together for the Anson one and then split cell with the Hawley tornado was cool as hell. Just such a taaaalll tornado and the fact that the set up was pretty subtle in a way but you guys were in a perfect position for these tornadoes and I remember you said after the day on X and that the strength and power of that Hawley tornado was a bit of surprise but was amazingly photogenic despite the serious damage it caused. That tour group got an amazing tornado stretch there for viewing and you guys were on the ball with this one.

The Robert Lee and Fort Stockton tornadoes were really impressive tornadoes but if I remember too, some chasers were complaining on those tornadoes that they were hard to chase as there was a bitch of a chasers convergence on both on poor roads but the chasers that stayed on the main roads and stayed back and away from the tornado got really got the best videos on both. The Robert Lee occlusion one was wicked.

[dragnflei]

I was watching Freddy McKinney’s stream on May 2 and the Hawley tornado was nuts. I was so glad that he was on the spot to help that family whose house got destroyed.

[andrewserafine]

Could you do a case study on the Texas supercell tagged for DVD sized hail?

[Purinmeido]

Outflow boundaries are my favorite wild card when it comes to tornado formation. Am always looking for them on radar during severe weather events

[anthonybernstein]

This was a very interesting case study, thank you!

[exaltedb]

That Robert Lee tornado was such an oddball on radar. I feared they were going to take a direct hit when it wrapped back around the way it did

[joseph-frankbrocchus]

Thanks for this great video / good luck with the hurricane chase / I was curious if you were interested in astronomy as I am, it seems like it goes hand-in-hand with climate and weather

[brandonjvl]

Hey Trey! This video as always is very well put together, informative, and interesting! Any possibility you could put together a video on the wisconsin tornado event that happened in June 2024 (Janesville WI). I think the event was very interesting how it unfolded especially the janesville supercell that traversed the entire width of Southern portion of the state, began to weaken as it was closing in on the city, then began to take in mergers, strengthen, and produced the EF2 Janesville tornado. As always, thankyou for your knowledge and incredibly well put together videos!

[zacharybenson]

So, the first tornado of the Hawley sequence was a "hybrid" tornado! I think Skip Talbot made a reference to that awhile ago but I think he's since deleted that video. I'd really love to see a video entirely dedicated to "weird" tornadoes like this. Thanks again for your video!

[AlfredoRistol]

SW TX has another breed of tornadoes, i mean, this having an eerie appearance like Jarrell, not to mention other wild outbreaks. Mesquite trees have something to tell down there lol

Do you have in mind talk about Loyal Valley or Bakersfield? Love your work man!

[KermitTheGamer]

I unfortunately didn't pay much attention to the severe weather season this year. I'm watching this at 2AM and about 1 minute in when you showed the radar loop of the Robert Lee tornado and it suddenly shifted northwest I think I woke somebody up with my audible "WTF???" reaction hahaha

[.]

I was surprised no one went down to fort stockton that day

[AllanEvansOfficial]

I chased May 4 and was late to the party and instead chased a rogue supercell near Coleman that day. Wish I would’ve gotten an earlier start!

[CrestviewStudios]

Why does no one talk about the F4 of April 9th, 1999 in Blue Ash? (Cincinnati, OH)
I feel like this is forgotten because of the May 3rd, 1999 F5 in Moore