Our destination today was south Texas where a stalling cold front straddled the Texas-Mexican border in the Big Bend region. Our decision point would be Sonora on Interstate 10...we would either head southeast to deep south Texas or head west to Fort Stockton.  From our past experience, storms would often build on the Mexican high country and border region in far SW Texas. With the right setup, one or two of these storms would make their way onto the Pecos valley, and in the right conditions mix with high moisture and strengthen. This phenomenon doesn't happen all the time and it's always hit or miss in this part of the country.

We decide to take the westerly option and head for Fort Stockton...Interstate 10 dissects south Texas and here the speed limit was 80mph, so you can travel long distances relatively quickly. We noted a string of weak cells drifting off the Mexican mountains SW of Fort Stockton. Over the next half hour one of the cells strengthens and remains almost stationery for an hour. Rather puzzled at the stationary status of this storm while other storms weakened or progressed northeast, it took a bit of a geography lesson to realise what was going on. SW of Fort Stockton, the Barrilla Mountains rise abruptly up from the plains to reach heights of almost 9,000'....this storm was anchored orographically. As we made our way west of Fort Stockton, we realised that the road systems here are not so grand. The dirt roads are a mix of rock and a very fine white powder that sticks to everything, and when wet reminded me of the consistency of a barium enema! The high mountains that we were aware of were completely enveloped in a blue-black cloud deck with bolts of lightning striking the ground.

We managed to locate ourselves in relatively remote country with inquisitive horses hanging around.Eventually the storm decides to drift off the mountains and head eastward, and we note an interesting gustfront clear the eastern slopes of the Barrilla Mountains. The storm achieves low end supercell status for about 40 minutes with a sporadically rotating wall area, and continued spectacular lightning. We head back to Interstate 10 and pace the storm east over the next hour or so, meeting up with a tour group. As we close in on Fort Stockton the storm weakens fairly rapidly and becomes an elevated rain area. We were happy with our gamble to head west.

We overnight at Fort Stockton and meet up with 3 other Australian storm adventurers, Michael Bath, Rodney Wallbridge and Jason Patterson from the northern rivers of New South Wales, and enjoy a nice steak dinner at K-Bobs Steakhouse.