On Wednesday, April 19th, the Abilene area was hit by a tornado-warned thunderstorm that produced tons of hail, high winds, and rotation that prompted the National Weather Service in San Angelo to issue a Tornado Warning. Not only did the storm pack a powerful punch, but it was very photogenic which made for some awesome images from Abilene folks.

You can scroll down now to see the images submitted by Abilene listeners, or keep reading to see how this tornado-warned storm personally took me by surprise. 

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Most people that know me, know that I am sort of a weather geek and am constantly looking at the weather, especially during storm season in Texas. But, this storm completely caught me off guard as I was sitting at the house and all of a sudden I get an alert that Taylor County is under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning.

READ MORE: What's The Difference Between a Watch and a Warning? 

I looked at the radar and saw this little dude sitting out there.

Photo: Chaz via Radar Scope
Photo: Chaz via Radar Scope
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Ah, hail!

It didn't look like much at first, but this bad boy was building, and getting stronger by the minute. In fact, about 15 minutes later, I looked to see if there was hail in it and boy was there some hail in it.

Photo: Chaz via Radar Scope
Photo: Chaz via Radar Scope
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The red and yellow colors you see in the above photo represent the hail core. Yellow means gigantic hail. By 8:21 pm the storm had rapidly grown into a supercell that showed some rotation in it.

At 8:45, National Weather Service issued a Tornado Warning for Taylor County

Photo: Chaz via Radar Scope
Photo: Chaz via Radar Scope
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I live on the south side of town towards Potosi, so as the storm was rolling northeast, I got a pretty good look at the backside of the storm and could clearly see rotation firsthand and by radar.

READ MORE: Tornado Facts and Safety Tips You Need to Know

I don't think I was the only one surprised as it took the local news stations about 10 minutes after the warning was issued for them to report it.

As I said, the storm packed a powerful punch and it was super photogenic as you can see with some of these pictures that were submitted by some Abilene folks below.

Personally, I'm glad that this strong storm didn't do a lot of damage. Oklahoma wasn't so lucky as they had several tornados roll through leaving 2 people dead.

We were definitely lucky this time.

LOOK: Abilene Listeners Capture Tornado-Warned Storm

If you have any images you'd like to submit, message on my personal Facebook page, and I'll add them to this gallery. 

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