Mikey's Blog

Entry for July 22, 2008

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:09:57 GMT

Dolly looks to be going a little farther south than anticipated. I have put very little time into forecasting, but one thing that makes me think this (besides current track) is that the heaviest convection is all on the south side of the circulation. Hurricanes tend to wobble in the direction of the heaviest convection, which means Dolly is likely to keep cheating south a little. I wish I was there, but I'm going to hold off until we get a major hurricane. Hopefully that will happen. I still think this will be a big year for hurricanes so I' m optimistic.

Entry for July 20, 2008

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:57:22 GMT

We may get our first US landfalling hurricane the middle of this week as Dolly approaches the Texas-Mexico border. I haven't done any forecasting (I suck at forecasting hurricanes anyways lol) so I don't have much idea on what to expect. A cat. 1-2 seems like a likely bet for landfall. I will work on my forecasting tomorrow and post again. Finally hurricane season is ramping up.

Entry for July 8, 2008

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:46:09 GMT

I haven't posted at all lately simply because I don't have anything to say lol. You really don't start getting good hurricanes until August, so I will start posting once we get there. I haven't been up to much aside from work. I did hear the other day that the TV show I did this spring may put up a promo clip on youtube, so if that happens I will link it on here. I still can't update my god damn website. Every time I try my computer locks up. I can't figure it out, but it's really pissing me off.

Entry for June 21, 2008

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:02:53 GMT

Still no hope in sight for a decent tornado outbreak in the plains. We'll keep getting tornadoes here and there, but nothing strong and no outbreaks to speak of. The ridge is holding strong. The polar jet is pretty much right along the Canadian border and it is going to stay there. This sucks.

I still haven't gotten into the hurricane forecasting yet. I did look at NOAA's seasonal forecast and they expect an average or above average hurricane season. That isn't surprising since we are in a long term peak in hurricane activity. I still think it will be a really big year. That is kind of based on the gambler's fallacy though. We'll see, but I'll start putting some hurricane posts up soon. I would update my hurricane page on my website, but I can't update a damn thing on there. My computer locks up every time I try to post new stuff. I haven't been able to update my website since March. I have got to get that figured out and I will post on here when I do.

Entry for June 16, 2008

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:43:21 GMT

There's no hope in sight... both the GFS and ECMWF hint at the crest of the ridge breaking down slightly in about a week as a trough rounds the top of it, but it only flattens out slightly. I am starting to think we are done completely. I really no better than to say that, but as far as major tornado outbreaks go I really do think we're done. You'll always get a tornado here and there with northwest flow aloft setups, but as far as deep digging troughs in the plains go, we're done. I'm sure a trough or two will still dig deep enough to bring a few decent tornado days to the Dakotas, so that and hurricane season are the only glimmers of light on the horizon.

It is amazing how every year by mid June I am totally burned out on chasing and I want it to be over, but I know that as soon as it is I will miss it again. The long drives and days of seeing nothing really wear on you through the spring, but even though it sucks ass most of the time I always miss it terribly as soon as it's over. Half of the fun of chasing for me is the anticipation. It's kind of weird since the whole goal of chasing is seeing tornadoes. I work my ass off to get on the right storm and to get close to a tornado, but the best moments in my mind are always of the drive out there or the boring hours spent standing in a parking lot looking over data on the laptop. I guess it's just because that is the time when you get to think ahead to what is going to happen that day. It is the time when I feel like all the work I've put into it is coming down to the wire and I have to get it right or fail. Unfortunately I haven't had a really good season where I felt like I nailed all the right storms since 2004 and 2005, but I honestly believe that is because I've gotten lazy since then. Next year I am going to get after it though. I used to average 20 tornadoes a season and I've dropped down from that in the last couple years. I swear that is ending this year.

Now, I guess it is time to start looking ahead to hurricane season. I'll still keep an eye on the tornado setups and obviously I'll post forecasts as warranted, but I plan on getting into the long range hurrricane forecasting this week and I will start posting on that soon. I really think this will be a big hurricane year. We are in a long term peak of hurricane activity, and despite ominous hurricane forecasts the last couple years we have been very slow since the 2005 season. Mother nature has a way of balancing out in the long run and I think we'll see that this year. I was always a big fan of the saying.... "what is average besides the mean of two extremes".

Entry for June 15, 2008

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:05:51 GMT

An outflow boundary is moving southwest across central and eastern Kansas. The boundary is oriented favorabley to storm motions and the greatest tornado threat will evolve with storms that fire and track along this boundary. The OFB is easily visible on base reflectivity and is now approaching the Emporia area. Therefore the highest tornado threat over the next four hours will be along a Salina to Emporia line and on southeast of there a ways.

Entry for June 13, 2008

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 05:04:29 GMT

The infamous summer death ridge is setting up over the central plains, which is very bad news for storm chasers. I do think that ridge will start to break down towards the end of next week though and we may see another decent trough affecting the high plains about 9-10 days from now. That isn't really what the models are showing, but that is what I am banking on for a few reasons. For the most part though tornado season is over for the central and southern plains. I probably will make a couple trips to the Dakotas though so hopefully I'm not done with tornadic storms for this year. We'll see.

Entry for June 12, 2008

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:34:48 GMT

Really unsure on what to expect this afternoon. I don't think we'll get any tornadoes, but I guess it's possible if 850 winds can start to back. I am still in Wichita right now. I think I will head just up the road to Newton here in a bit. I am hoping a storm will fire near Newton and I think the best tornado potential will occur east of there later this afternoon as storms mature.

Entry for June 11, 2008

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:06:35 GMT

I will probably chase tomorrow since it will be close to home and there is a reasonable chance of a tornado or two. I haven't done any forecasting yet, but after glancing at things I will likely target some where very close to Wichita, which is great. I will post a forecast tomorrow.

Entry for June 11, 2008

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:14:50 GMT

I am still very confident in my Fremont Nebraska target. I checked stormtrack and some guys are going north up to Sioux City and others are south of Omaha, but I am feeling pretty damn confident that Fremont is the best place to be right now. Up north I think storms will be in a better lowlevel shear environment obviously, but they will outrun the best overlay of CAPE shear too quickly. The south of Omaha target doesn't take advantage of the better SRH further north. Fremont is the happy medium. Damnit I wish I was there.