Wrapup of 20 April chase

The day started with SPC slotting our area under a Slight Risk, with a 5% chance of tornadoes. I had already decided to invest a couple of vacation hours and head out just after lunch, but my eyebrows and my interest level both rose when the SPC upped the tornado probabilities to 10%. The retreating warm front was slowly pushing northward and I knew I had to be south of it, so I motored down to the Carmel Church area just off I-95 where I logged into the internet to watch conditions and await the arrival of the newspaper folks who were to undergo their chasing initiation. By 1600 the overcast had thinned and blue sky was peeking through but the main area of strong convection stubbornly remained to our south and east amid territory I tend to avoid chasing in. Undaunted, I led our two vehicle convoy westward to Montpelier to await initiation of convection there. The towers did start going up there after a while and we moved several miles westward to get a better view. At this new location we witnessed mammatus as storms grew around us, which was a good sign of severity. My son called and mentioned that new cells were going up even further west, so we jogged northwestward through Mineral and stopped at Wares' Crossroads where we saw the back edge of the storms with very cool air and chaotic winds. The photo below shows an area of rotation that tried to get organized:

These cells were pushing northeastward at 30+ mph so we jumped onto State Route 208 and leapfrogged northward almost to Post Oak where we stopped and saw this:
The scud underneath this back edge was interesting but never organized. At this point our chasing convoy parted ways and I moved all the way to New Post where I watched this storm complex as it continued eastward while a new storm built behind me. I was content to experience the lightning and video some of the cloud motions before calling it a day. Not the most productive chase, but it was worth the effort.