loadedgunchasing.com Blog

I’m sitting in Enid right now. I decided to chase at the last minute. I’m hoping that something can fire along the outflow boundary that runs NW to SE. It is just south of Enid. I’m hoping something will go up a little ways west of here. Seeing SPC bring the 5% tornado risk area down south a little farther made me question my judgement on a target (don’t have much choice on a target anyway since we didn’t leave town until 2), but in the past when I’ve changed my target based on an SPC forecast and busted because of it I was more than a little pissed off about it lol. If I’m gonna bust I want it to be all my fault so I’m staying put or heading a little a little southwest. My actual target is a little ways west of here and south a bit, but we got wifi in Enid so there is no reason to leave. We can catch a storm if it fires.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the upper air pattern trying to anticipate when we’ll get our next chase day. I actually made a long range forecast post yesterday, but for some reason it didn’t show up on my blog.

There have been some pretty serious changes in the upper air pattern over the last three runs of the GFS and it doesn’t agree well with the ECMWF, so it’s kind of hard to know what to expect.

I’ll forecast some later this morning because I want to take a closer look at the shortwave that should affect parts of the southern plains on Sunday and I also want to spend a little more time on the long range models.

Right now it looks like maybe, and that’s a big maybe you could get some chasing action on Sunday, but unless that shortwave slows down it’s progression (the GFS has sped it up in the past three runs) then the only area that would be worth chasing will be in unchaseable terrain with very fast storm motions due to a lack of directional shear and strong kinematics.
Saturday could be a sleeper day as the shortwave is still over the desert SW, but there will be a sharp dryline through Texas with good instability ahead of it, strong 850mb winds out of the south and just enough deep layer shear for supercells. I haven’t looked at this much, but if a storm or two could manage to form along the dryline Saturday it might do OK.

Beyond that there are some pretty significant differences in the models as I mentioned. On top of that I trust them about as far as I can throw them and I hear they’re pretty heavy. The GFS has continued to hint at a trough deepening over the west coast around next weekend time frame, but if the GFS can’t even get a surface boundary right 12 hours out who the hell knows how far it’s off when we’re talking about 220 hours out.

I’ll update a little later with some more details.

Below is a thumbnail of the 500mb chart for Sunday showing the shortwave over the southern plains.

I glanced over the models. I’m not very impressed with the setup for Wednesday and Thursday. It is a weak disturbance and won’t be any sort of major outbreak scenario. I need to spend some more time looking at it tommorow morning because I’m getting ready to go bed now. I thought NW Kansas was probably the best looking spot for tornadoes on Wednesday, but I barely looked at. I’ll check it out in the morning.

The reason I haven’t been posting much and doing real in-depth forecasts like I did last year is because we are really busy at work so I’m having to work almost 12 hours a day. I only get a few hours of time to do what I want each night so I can’t really spend the proper amount of time forecasting. Plus I’m so tired I start dozing off and mispelling like I am right now lol. This busy streak ends in two weeks at work though so my schedule will loosen up a lot right as we get into the peak of storm season. Next major tornado day I’m jusg going to take the whole day off instead of working in the morning so that I have plenty of time to forecast and get ready. Normally I go into work in the morning and then I’m always a little late getting out or under prepared on my forecast. I’ll fix that though.

Well yesterday my data card didn’t work and I had not internet access. I got it fixed this morning and it was working fine until I crossed the KS-OK border heading south from Pratt. Apparently there is zero verizon coverage for aircards down there. So once again I couldn’t post updates on the blog about the forecast and where we were going. I am going to AT&T tomorrow to look at a second data card to cover me in areas where verizon won’t work.

Anyway, today we went down well south of Woodward and got on the storm that went tornado warned as it crossed the Texas border. It stayed tornado warned for like two hours and one tornado was reported, but we didn’t see it. It was a long stretched out storm with non typical supercell structure to it. It did finally break up into a smaller cell and developed a good looking updraft base with a lowering. For about 10 minutes it looked like it could produce a tornado any time. I thought it probably would at that time, but after ten minutes or so the wall cloud evaporated and the base raised back up. It got worse and worse from there and NWS finally pulled the tornado warning on it. Soon after that we called it a day and headed home.
Even though we busted and the chase sucked, I feel good knowing we were on the only tornado warned storm over the high risk area (at least that was warned for a long period of time). The storm produced a tornado, we just didn’t see it. There were the weak tornadoes that hit by Goddard and Lawrence, but I’m not going to target those areas when you have 40kt 1km SR winds over western Oklahoma. I have to go where the best tornado chances are. It’s no uncommon for a tornado to occur some place else than where you targetted (like back by where you live, Wichita for me today) and people are like man why did we go all this way when there was a tornado right next to home? They don’t understand how it works though. That was a freak deal. There was a cluster of storms where that tornado came out of. We chased the right area today, the storm just didn’t get it done. You could have never predicted that weak tornado west of Wichita and if I would have been at home watching radar today I would have picked the storm we were on as having the best chance of going tornadic. It just didn’t happen.

That makes two days in a row where we got on tornado warned storm, got wall clouds on both, but no tornadoes. This is the way it goes early in the season. You bust about 75% of the time and that is right where we are at. I think that was our fifth chase and we’ve gotten one tornado so we’re batting 20%. In May my average typically goes up to the 50% or higher range. The highest I get is seeing tornadoes on about 75% of my chases during the last part of May, but that was on some of my better years. I’m confident I’ll get tornadoes on more than 50% of the chases in May though. Setups that just don’t work out, like todays, for some reason do work out in May. It’s the magical time of the year for tornadoes. The statistical peak is the last two weeks of May and the first week of June, so we are just coming up on the good time frame.

The next opportunity for chasing looks to be Thursday. It looks like a classic surface low, dryline, warm front setup, which is refreshing to see after sever nontypical setups, but it shows low level winds veering right now. That can change though and details can’t be taken seriously this far out. There is a deepening surface low over southwest Kansas so I think the winds will back fine. Even now the GFS has 850mb winds backed ahead of the dryline in western Oklahoma. It looks like a pretty good setup for tornadoes along the dryline if the cap isn’t too strong. I just glanced it over, so I’ll post a formal forecast tomorrow.

Sorry again about not getting chase, target and forecast updates over the last two days, but there was just no way to do it without internet. If you haven’t see the maps I use then you can scroll back through the blog to see one. What I plan on doing this year is updating my blog from the road every hour or two on chase days with short term forecasts and maps. Kind of like regularly scheduled mesoscale discussions from the Storm Prediction Center.

I had heard before that Verizon’s coverage sucked in Oklahoma, but it’s supposed to be the best in the rest of the plains so hopefully I’ll have more luck next time. We were late today getting out of town or I would have just stopped at a wife spot to update my blog. Next time I’ll find a way to update the blog during the day one way or another.

Oh, and btw another reason I know we were on the right storm is because the TIV, Reed Timmer with his new red tornado intercept vehicle and the rest of the support vehciles shooting the Discovery Channel show Storm Chasers were on the same storm. Reed is a really good forecaster so we were in good company on our storm today. Just didn’t work out. I will update the blog tomorrow with a forecast for Thursday.

no time to explain much, but we are south of Medicine Lodge heading towards woodward Oklahoma. I don’t have time to explain things, but I think the Woodward area and on up to the KS-OK border area may be the best place for tornadic supercells later this afternoon and evening. I should be on spotter network if you want to see where we are at. The verizon coverage sucks in this area though so I’ll probably drop my coverage from time to time.
Sorry I didn’t post a forecast or any update before this. I would have but I was on the phone with verizon all morning getting my aircard fixed so I couldn’t do it.
It is a sloppy sloppy mess out here, but I think we are headed for a good spot.

My god damn internet aircard quit working on the way out to our target this morning. I got on the phone with Verizon and went through a ton of trouble shooting and then she told me the only way to fix it was to reset the key something or some crap like that and I had to be in a verizon covered area to do that, which I wasn’t, so I could post anything today. I couldn’t get hardly any data. We got to stop a couple times for quick wifi checks. That sucked really bad. We got on a storm southeast of Woodward and stayed on it for a while. The storm ahead of it was more discrete so we decided to jump ahead to that one. Right after we left our storm for that one the storm we were going to went tornado warned. It had a wet RFD notch and a little bit or a scraggley lowering when we first approached it from the back, but nothing serious. We stayed on that storm for an hour or so until it started crapping out and then came home.

I have no idea what went wrong today. I don’t think the low level shear kicked in like it was supposed to or the storms were tapping into the high instability and good moisture. Something definitely went wrong. I’m not going to try and figure it out now because tomorrow is another chase day so I have to do some quick forecasting and go to bed. We are meeting up at 9:30 in the morning to head west. I haven’t picked a target yet, but I’ll post one in the morning before I leave.

My aircard should be working tomorrow too. I just need to call Verizon in the morning and have them reset it. If it works I will post updates and maps from the road.

My data card is screwed up so I have zero internet and have not been able to post all day. We are on wifi in enid right now heading towards Fairview Oklahoma. Hopefully they will have wifi there.

Well the GFS and the NAM have once again stuck to their guns. I think they might have even seperated the triple point even more than in the last couple runs. I’m not getting into a long detailed forecast or explaining my thinking too much on this because I am dead tired and I have to get up to setup equipment in the morning, but this should be sufficient.

The NAM sets the triple point up along I40 just west of the Texas-Oklahoma border with the highest CAPE at 00Z either side of the border. The GFS is farther north near the Kansas border and puts the CAPE bullseye between Woodward and Cherokee Oklahoma.

I am siding with the GFS, once again and in my opinion it looks much better then the NAM. I really like the setup the GFS is showing. The GFS has precip breaking out near Woodward (just downstream of the CAPE bullseye) well before 00Z (probably 22Z, but the models are god awful with precip). Deep layer shear isn’t great at 45kts, but when combined with CAPE AOA 3000 this will be an extremely favorable environment for supercells. There is excellent directional shear with the hodograph almost making a half circle on the Woodward forecast sounding. 0-1km SRH is 225 and 0-3 is 350, both of which are past the threshold for a decent tornado threat (0-1km is especially good). And finally 1km SR winds are forecast at 26kts. That’s good, but not great.

There are a couple things I don’t like. One is that 10km SR winds are only 23kts and 5km SR winds are only 10kts. That’s not very good for those of you that don’t follow this kind of stuff, but it is far from being a show stopper. I also wish mid level flow was a little stronger, but as many people have noted in stormtrack forecast posts there have been plenty of great tornadic storms with weak mid level flow.

With dewpoints in the mid 60’s LCL heights will get plenty low by 00Z. Storm speeds should be perfect at around 25kts towards the northeast. That’s easy to keep up with and fast enough to move out into the better moisture.

I like this setup a lot if it verifies. The big question mark is the NAM that is still hanging out there and it just isn’t quite as good of a setup as the GFS is and hasn’t been for days now IMO.
If the GFS is correct I think a tornadic supercell over northwest Oklahoma is highly likely and with lowering LCL heights and increasing low level flow late in the evening strong tornadoes will be possible. My target right now is Woodward (I think the best environment for tornadoes will be just northeast of there).

Below is my forecast map. BTW I will also be posting maps with position updates through the day tomorrow while we are out chasing so check back if you’re interested.

I am pretty much in agreement with SPC and favor the northern end of the hatched area on their latest day2 outlook. Kind of like the Woodward, Buffalo and Beaver area. I think the triple point will end up some place close to there. Given the good directional shear, moderate instability, good moisture and fairly stout 850mb winds (assuming the NAM doesn’t have it’s way) I think there would be a good tornado threat with storms coming off the triple point and riding the boundary. The strength of the low level shear tomorrow is going to play a major part in the strength of the tornadoes. I think you would probably even get a tornado with the NAM (which has weaker winds in the surface to 850mb layer), but I don’t think they would be that great.

I’m still not done with my forecasting believe it or not. I got my ass pounded at work all day because I work with morons so I never had much time to get on the computer. I’m home now though so I’m going to take a quick shower, load some of my gear in the car and then sit down on the couch to finish my forecasting and make a map to go with it.

Since we know the triple point is probably going to be the best place tomorrow what I’ll do is continously update my blog with comments and maps throughout the day. By early afternoon you should be able to pin down the tornado threat area pretty easily. Like I said before though, my guess is the Woodward, Buffalo area. That could change after I finish my forecasting and look at current data though.

Finally the GFS updated and although it shows a very good setup for tornadic storms, it is very different from the NAM which furthers the confusion on what exactly is going to happen. Now that it has updated I can start working on my forecasting though.

Below is a quick post I just made on Stormtrack…

Just when it looked like all hope was gone, the GFS turns around and comes back through for us.

Nice triple point along the OK-KS border with CAPE AOA 3000J/kg all the way from east of the triple point down the dryline. It has convection breaking out at the triple point/front just east of it and more convection further south. A rapidly deepening surface low backs winds across the warm sector to SE and puts them straight out of the east along the boundary. Even 850 winds are out of the south-southeast just ahead of the triple point. Although 850mb winds are only progged to be in the 30kt range along the border area (stronger down south) that is plenty good enough. Directional shear in the 0-6km layer is great. Deep layer shear could be better (it’s around 45kts), but moderate to high instability will more than make up for that.

It presents such and easy chase with an easy target selection. Slow moving supercells (may be a little wet) with a few tornadoes would be great. I’m a directional shear junkie so even though the hodograph for Alval and Medicine Lodge aren’t long, I really like the curvature.

Now I just have to spend the rest of my day pulling my hair out in an effort to figure out which mode is telling the truth. One target is a couple hours away and the other one is about six hours away.

I napped later than I was supposed to and just got up a little while ago. Between work and storm chasing stuff it’s killing me. It’s tough to get myself motivated to forecast when I know I’m going to turn around do it tomorrow morning again anyway.
I am going to keep this very short, because i didn’t look at much and I need to go to bed. I’m going to try to get out of work at noon tomorrow so I can start working on getting my car setup for chasing Saturday and possibly Sunday. Until just now I hadn’t looked at any model runs beyond Saturday. Sunday looks good in western Oklahoma with the GFS. The NAM is quite a bit different though so who knows what’s going to happen. At least starting tomorrow we can start to figure it out for ourselves instead of depending on the models so much.

For tomorrow the GFS scooted the triple point south about 20 miles. I think it’s kind of in the Ashland Kansas area. I would target 20 miles east of the triple point and wait on any storm going up at the triple point, along the dryline and then possibly along the warm front in that area. I’ve never been a fan of warm front storms though. It seems like they always outrun the good environment before they have a chance to mature and storm motions will be perpendicular enough to the boundary on Saturday for that to happen. Soo, triple point and dryline south of there is my target. If the gfs stays where it is that would be right along the Kansas Oklahoma border. The NAM is holding steady too, which is quite annoying. If anything the GFS came in closer towards the NAM by shrinking down the instability fields and showing a more localized even like the NAM has had previously. That sucks, but it only takes one good storm.

I will work harder on this in the morning.

I’ve taken a pretty good look at the 12Z GFS, but I want to see the 00Z NAM before posting because if it finally comes in line with the gfs it will seriously affect my forecast and my confidence in it.
I have to work on setting up to stream video anyway and squeeze in a quick nap so it works out better for me anyway. I’m just going to wait until the NAM shows up on RAP and that’s usually around 10pm, so a post should come shortly after that . I’ll probably link it on stormtrack too.
My forecast has changed much either from the previous two. My highest threat area on the maps are still the same and I still think there will be the potential for strong tornadoes. The 00Z NAM is going to be a BIG deal if it will fall in line with the other modes. We’ll see in a few hours.

I am waiting for both the GFS and NAM to update on COD. I’ve glanced over things on RAP, but I need to do a much more detailed forecast with the higher resolution models, soundings, etc. It will take a little while, but I think I’ll get it done by 1pm.

I didn’t do much forecasting tonight, so this is pretty weak. Tomorrow morning’s forecast will be a decent one.

With the 00Z runs the picture becomes even clearer and at least a localized tornado outbreak is looking increasingly likely. Right now it is a good bet there will be tornadic storms over the area I’ll highlight on the map below, but the number and strength of any tornadic storms come down to smaller scale details that are not yet clear. I certainly think strong tornadoes are possible, I’m just not very confident on where exactly I would place the threat level for this setup. The slightly weaker looking setup the NAM shows bothers me a little bit, but I’m going to ignore it. It is still a good setup for tornadoes, so don’t get me wrong. I’m just trying to classify whether this is a good or great setup.

On surface features the 00Z NAM has moved closer to the GFS, while the GFS dropped slightly south. I am siding with the GFS again, placing the triple point some where in the Dodge City area or just south of there.
There are still a lot of things about the 00Z NAM that I don’t like or agree with. I don’t want to start pouring over all those details tonight, but I will get more into it tomorrow with the 12Z runs because I think the discrepenies between models will close up even more by then. If I had to guess the NAM will probably move the dryline a little east and push the triple point north this side of the Kansas border and the GFS will drop a hair south again. If that is indeed what happens it should be pretty easy to start zeroing in on targets.

My last forecast pretty much covers my forecast and the last map I posted is still pretty much valid. I tweaked it and made a new one though.
I like the GFS better than the NAM. Surface winds are backed more, it doesn’t widen the moisture gradient south of the triple point for no reason. 850mb winds are stronger. Basically it shows a slightly higher end tornado threat. I need to get to bed, but I will post a detailed forecast tomorrow morning. Here is my updated map. I just threw it together quickly with no color, but it will work. I’m real anxious to see how SPC handles this in the morning. Next forecast will be in the morning.

The GFS has again held steady and my confidence continues to grow in a tornado outbreak. I have done some forecasting off of 00Z data this morning, but I want to wait for the 12Z runs before I right a detailed forecast. For numerous runs now I’ve felt the best target will near the dryline from just south of the warm front down to around the Oklahoma border (assuming the GFS surface pattern holds true). I think this area is colocated with the best environment for tornadic supercells and discrete storms. Ahead of the dryline in this area 850mb winds will be backed at 40kts. This combined with respectable directional shear and moderate CAPE will pose a strong tornado threat with any discrete storms.

Below is a rough map that I just made and it isn’t exactly dead on. I would scoot my striped area where I think the highest tornado potential is a little farther north, but I’m not messing with it. I’m sure I will shift things one way or another before Saturday anyway.
As of now I would target Dodge City and adjust North or South from there as needed (probably a little south to the border area if the cap isn’t a big concern). I will post my next forecast after I look at the 12Z data.

EDIT – the triple point will be a target to keep a close eye on, especially if he NAM solution verifies where the moisture gradient along the dryline is spread. I doubt that happens though because with the surface low deepening through the day it should help to sharpen and bulge the dryline immediately south of the warm front and surface low.

I just glanced at the ECMWF and couldn’t tell much since there is so little available date that they provide to the public, but it basically looked about a day slower in ejecting the short wave into the plains.
We are still way far out and a lot can change, but there are several things to be optimistic about. Even though the models have been ovedoing dewpoints by a couple degrees all year(especially the NAM), the GFS has had td’s in he low 60’s for numerous runs now so expect we will realize 60 degree td’s. With good insolation we can expect moderate instability. Regardless of which model you go with deep layer shear will be suficient for supercells.
So far the GFS composite indices like EHI and Signficant Tornado have been peaking ahead of the dryline in the KS-OK border area, which is about where I’d target, I’d probably go a little south of there if the GFS verified.
Tomorrow the NAM picks up on this and it’s real forecast time. I am dozing off constatntly as I’m writing this so I’m sure there are several grammer errors. I gotta hit the sak and I’ll forecast in the morning. I’m going to post a map along wih my forecast tomorrow too. I finally downloaded blank forecast maps and put them on a flash drive so i can make forecast maps where ever I am.

Finally we are starting to see some consistency out of the models. I have flipped though quite a few things quickly, but a lot of stuff still hasn’t updated from the 12Z run so I’ll have to post my forecast in a little bit. My confidence is greatly increased that we will see a tornado outbreak on Saturday though.

The surface low has been over central to NW Kansas in the last few runs with the dryline running through western Oklahoma and a warm front running east/northeast from the surface low. Ahead of the dryline dewpoints AOA 60 degrees combined with good insolation should yeild CAPE >2000J/kg. I haven’t looked at much aside from cruising through RAP and looking at charts for each pressure level, but I’m guesstimating the deep layer shear will be in the 55kt area ahead of the dryline in central and southern Kansas. With a fairly stout cap and the shear vector being normal to the boundary discrete supercells should be the favored mode of convection along the dryline.
Another huge plus is that 850mb winds are backed and out of the south at 40kts along the dryline. Strong low level winds is a huge part of good tornado days. If that can verify and we get backed 850mb winds at 40kts strong tornadoes would be possible given the other paramaters that are being shown by the GFS. I am anxious to see the hodograph (I guess I can just plot my own), but I’m sure it will look quite good for tornadic storms.
LCL heights will be managable with about a 20 degree spread during peak heating and then cooling down in the afternoon when storms should fire.

The triple point and warm front might have some potential too, especially farther east down the warm front over north central Kansas and east of there. I haven’t had time to really look at that area yet though.

Basically everything looks good. The surface low deepens through the day which backs surface winds. The moisture gradient should be fairly tight and storm motions should be quick enough to move storms well out into the warm sector before dark if they fire at a reasonable time. It is perfect chase country. It’s on a Saturday. What could possibly go wrong? The cap lol. No precip on the models for several runs, but they are always off on precip. I think storms will break the cap Saturday and I’m beginning to believe that there will be several tornadic supercells along the dryline from central Kansas down to southern Oklahoma and possibly some more tornadic storms farther north near the triple point and warm front.
The dryline is my target on this one though. I absolutely love dryline chases. They are my favorite by far. As of now my target would be a little ways south of the KS-OK border 20 miles ahead of the dryline.

Now watch, since I’m saying there will be a tornado outbreak the damn GFS will do a 180 and show a crap setup for Saturday now lol. Nah, I think we got a good chase day coming. I’ll update later with more details.

I alway preech not to get wrapped up in run to run changes in the models and try to just focus on the overall picture, but I can never manage to take my own advice.
Again the GFS is back on track with having Friday and Saturday as good chase days and then it wants to maintain troughing over the west coast with several disturbances making it’s way through the plains. For right now I am focused on Friday and Saturday. I was totally swamped at work today and never once checked the models until about twenty minutes ago. I obviously haven’t had enough time for forecast, but the overall setup for the weekend (especially Saturday) looks like a respectable chase day. When it comes to tornadoes the devil is in the details though.

So what’s been consistent in the overall picture (model to model and run to run)? Good moisture and moderate instability is a safe assumption with that since there hasn’t been an abundance of overnight convection being forecast (plus the GFS has been showing CAPE AOA 2500J/kg routinely). With the higher dewpoints, hopefullly low 60’s, LCL heights shoul be low once you get out over the warm sector. Basically the thermodynamics side of the story has been a little more clear than the kinematics side. 850mb winds are veering slightly in the latest GFS run, but not to the point where I think it would be a show stopper. Mid level flow has been sufficiently strong for deep layer shear to be in the 50kt range, which when combined with moderate instability will be quite favorable for supercells. The GFS doesn’t have much in the way of convection breaking out along the dryline on Saturday, but I’ve also said in the past that the GFS and NAM are awful on forecasting convection and not even worth looking at IMO, so I’m ignoring that. With a sharp moisture gradient we should break the cap.

Another good thing about this is that it’s in great chase territory. Right now it has the triple point in the Dode City/Woodwar/NE Texas panhandle area with the dryline running south from there. That’s right in the middle of good chase terrain so I’m sure the surface features will shift one way or another this week, but unless it shifts dramatically it should still be in good chase country.

This is not a forecast btw. This is just me throwing out my thoughts. I WILL forecast at work tomorrow. I havt to so I can tell my customers whether or not we’ll be chasing, so I will post a real forecast tomorrow.

Just a quick update to the post below. The ECMWF is definitely a little slower than it has been with the progresion of the trough. I think a lot of this has to do with the positively tilted nature of it vs. the neutral to negative tilt we were looking at several days ago. Monday and Tuesday are looking like a more likely time frame for severe weather if this tends to be the case.
Again I will update in the morning or tomorrow sometime.

There continues to be uncertainty on the timing of our next chase day, but after seeing the 12Z GFS it looks like southwest flow aloft should begin returning to the plains as early as Saturday with the stronger 500mb winds entering the plains the firt part of the week. I want to check the European again, which I haven’t so I will probably update this in a bit.

I don’t want to get into the details tonight because I have a lot to do, but we should probably see our best moisture of the year in Kansas with this trough. I think dewpoints over 60 is plausible which also means we’ll get some good instability, which we haven’t had to work with yet this year either.

A lot can change between now and then, but for I don’t know how many days now I’ve been watching this and stickng to the same story that there is a trough coming over the Rockies this weekend (looking a little slower now possibly), so at least we have a high degree of certainty that something will happen. It may be a great tornado day or may be a bust. Who knows. I am not as excited about the upper air patter as I was several days ago, but it doesn’t take a perfect upper air pattern to produce a good tornado day, so no worries there.
I may update with a few details tonight and then I may post a forecast tomorrow morning because I’ll be at work by 5am, which means I’ll probably take some computer time and drink coffee. If I feel like going over the models then I’ll post a forecast. If not it will come later in the day.

Well as usual the models are jumping around making it very difficult to look ahead 7 days or so to see what will happen. The GFS is still updating on COD, which I prefer to use, so I’ll take a little closer look at the synoptic scale details and try to figure out why there are differences and what’s causing it (which I absolutely am not quailifed to do, but it makes me sound smart lol). No, what I’ll really do is take a closer look at the models and see if I can get some additional guidance from other long range forecasts where the people writing them know a lot more than me when it comes to synoptic scale meteorology.

Right now the European (which traditionally is more accurate IMO) is to some degree sticking to its same upper air patter with sligh changes and slowing down a little bit. It maintains a deep trough that slowly makes its way across the Rockies.

The GFS on the other hand has changed completely and now has the trough becoming very positively tilted of the NW US coast, stalling out and then sending a serious of weak disturbances through the high plains. Then it starts to move on shore (can’t remember all the days so this is just over the next 7-10 days) and deepens over the Rockies and slowly begins to ease into the central plains.

Below is a picture of the 500mb flow for Saturday from each model.

GFS

ECMWF
<

It looks like we won't be getting much action this weekend and it will be pushed back. Who knows how long, but there will be a trough hanging around some place out West. Right now the European solution would be better for us, but there is hope with the GFS too. Here is a picture of the 300mb chart for Tuesday of next week from the GFS.

Who knows what is going to happen. I have a lot of stuff to do today, but it is mostly work I am doing from my apartment and some of it’s on my computer too, so I’ll keep doing a little forecasting here and there. I’ll probably post a few short updates throughout the day.

Sorry I haven’t gotten any forecasts posted lately. I had some friends in town last night that rented out that party bus deal and went downtown to the bars, so I went with them. I got flat out hammered. I didn’t wake up until almost 1pm this morning, chedcked spc and decided I better chase since it was close to hom and in the viewing area.
I got on the storm that was riding the OK-KS and was tornado warned for a wile. ai damn near gotcord by it when I was tryi ton approac it from teh Norh side. when I say clse I mean I was alreayd in the hail and I coul see the heavy shaft being me a few hundred yards. Luckily I got away from it because there wa reported to.
I didn’t see much. It was outflow dominant and had a shelf cloud along the front of it. I waited around to see if it would get a cool looking striated shelf cloud, but it didn’t, so I bailed aat like 6:30

I will have all day tomorow for working chasing so I’ll get a forecast posted done.

The potential still exists for a severe/tornado outbreak next weekend over the central plains. The most likely time for this is Friday and Saturday with maybe Sunday coming in to play if the trough slows down at all. Timing is very difficult to pin down this far out.

The major concerns are moisture advection after the gulf has been wiped clean the beginning of the week. Whether or not dewpoints can recover ahead of this system will be critical to the tornado potential.
The tilt of the upper level trough and obviously the kinematics associated with this shortwave will also be a major issue and there isn’t any consistency between the models on that.

All we know is the ECMWF and GFS have good run to run consistency in developing the classic upper air pattern for spring time severe/tornado outbreaks. That’s all we can hope for. I will forecast later tonight.

I haven’t changed must since the GFS hasn’t updated and the ECMWF doesn’t go out far enough and only provides very basic data. I am still thinking that moisture advection will begin next week, which will be tough after the passage of the current trough located over the southern plains wipes the gulf clean of moisture. How well moisture can return ahead of this next trough will be critical to the tornado potential. It is impossible to tell this far out, but so far there isn’t a real tight pressure gradient in the lower levels as the trough approaches, which makes me nervous. We need a screaming lowlevel jet to pump good moisture up here.
No need to go over deteails though. Below are thumbnail maps of the 12Z GFS and spaghetti charts for later next week. Both show the approaching west coast trough. You can click on either one to enlarge. I will post a forecast some time tomorrow after the new model runs come out.

I

Synoptically Evident severe weather/tornado outbreak
becoming more likely towards the end of next week.

Both the European and GFS are in fairly good agreement with the overall synoptic scale pattern over the next 7 days, but there are a number of differences I’m sure in some of the smaller details, but it doesn’t matter this far out and I don’t have time to examine it, so this post is based on a partial agreement of both models.

I have to keep this brief because I have work to do, but I’ll post on it again tonight. The current trough bringing severe weather to the plains today and tomorrow will dig south and wipe the gulf clean all the way down to the northern end of the Caribbean. Because of this moisture recovery will be extremely slow due to the great distance it has to travel to reach the central plains. I have not had time to look at resident air masses over the gulf or the potential for air mass modification (during mid week) so this is all just a quick and rough overview of what’s coming up. I wouldn’t even dignify it with the word forecast.

Moisture advection should slowly begin to ramp up the middle of next week (Wednesday time frame) as the upper level ridge becomes established over the plains. Several days of modest advection should be sufficient to bring decent moisture into the southern and central plains. There is no possible way of knowing what kind of dewpoints we can expect this far out. All we know is the basic overview of the synoptic scale pattern. The strenght of the upper level trough, surface pressure gradients and dozens of other things can affect what happens with moisture advection. The bottom line is that we should have several days of lowlevel southerly flow advecting moisture into the central plains.

At this same time a trough will begin to deepen over the northwest US. This trough is forecast to slowly progress eastward as it digs farther south. Strenght of mid level wind fields are in question (everything is this far out), but upper level support should begin to affect the plains as early as Saturday.

The forecast is very unclear after Friday, but we do know we will have west coast troughing, moisture advection underway and climatology on our side. This is all you can ask for this far out. I did check the last two runs of the GFS to determine consistency in the synoptic scale pattern, but I didn’t have time to check previous runs of the ECMWF. I will do that and take a much closer look at this tonight.

This is a long ways out and a lot can change, but I am pumped simply because we are quickly approaching the time when tornado season really cranks up and the synoptic scale pattern that the GFS and ECMWF are showing (details aside) is a textbook spring severe/tornado outbreak scenario. One detail that I will point out is that the trough is not very progressive (meaning it stalls over the rockies) which can be a good or bad thing. It can be good if it’s far enough east and we get multiple chase days and it can be terrible if it stalls over the rockies and we get a whole lot of nothing as the trough weakens. Time will tell, but climatology is on our side. I have a lot of work to get done before I am 100% chase ready and this just gives me a little motivation to get it done.

Check back tonight for another post.

I won’t be making any forecast posts on today’s setup and I doubt I make any on tomorrow’s either. I just don’t think the risk warrants the time and effort of forecasting considering how busy I am.

I will however be doing my long range forecasting today at work because I haven’t done it in a while and I really need to get an idea of what is coming up. I’m going to post a forecast map with it too, but it’s just for practice so it may just be a BS map. Anyway, the long range forecast will be up by 1pm or so. Sorry for not posting a forecast last night. I fully intended to and fell asleep on the couch at 6 and didn’t wake up until 1am. I’ve been over worked and sleep deprived lately. Come hell or high water my long range forecast will be posted by early afternoon though lol.

On a side note, congratulations to Brandon Ivey on making it onto the Discovery Channel Show Storm Chasers. I honestly can’t think of more than two or three people who actually get in the field and chase more than that guy does. He has certainly worked hard for it.

I decided I’ll go ahead and post a brief forecast tonight. I’ll probably just go off the 12Z runs, but I may wait for the 00Z NAM before posting it. I’ll play it by ear. I really don’t feel like forecasting because I’m not chasing, I’m tired and quite frankly the setups over the next few days are going to be a bitch to predict ahead of time. They both look like days where you get in the general area of expected insolation and destabilization and watch visible satellite all morning to pick your target as the afternoon unfolds.
Anyway, I’ll try throwing a forecast out there, but I can already promise you it’s going to be god awful wrong on this one.

I’m not going to make any forecast posts tonight. I have been working on my website to make some changes on the chase tour portion of it. I need to go back and add the video clips to each chase report, which I had until my website got wiped out, but that’s not real high on my priority list. Just wanted to let you know so you aren’t wasting your time checking for updates.

I am very interested to see what SPC is going to do with the forecast for both Thursday and Friday. The ECMWF was more accurate with the timing, so maybe it’s more accurate with the more meridional style flow with this trough too. That would make it an even tougher forecast. If I were to start forecasting for both Thursday and Friday right now I’m sure it would take at least a couple hours, so it ain’t happenin captain lol. Nah I normally would, but I don’t think the threat justifies me putting off more important chase related chores that I need to get done in order to write a forecast. If the models start to change drastically, and they very well could (look at the amazing 180 they pulled last Thursday) then I will direct my full attention to forecasting the event. For now I’ll keep it to a minimum.

I will probably update with a brief forecast in the morning. thanks for stopping by and sorry about not getting the forecast up tonight.

I worked on my forecasting for about a half hour, but that wasn’t enough time to get a good idea of what to expect.
I shouldn’t have backed away from my belief that the European was handling the timing better a few days ago, because now the GFS has backed off in speed and come more in line with what the ECMWF was showing a couple days ago. I knew better than to do that.

Basically what you have with the NAM and the GFS is somewhat similiar setups (when taking a very broad overview of it). The GFS positions the dryline much farther east on Friday with a tight moisture gradient bulge along the coast with lower 60 td’s ahead of it. Both days look like they’ll have problems with precip and cloud cover during the day. The shear profiles look great, withfairly strong southeast surface winds, SE 925mb winds, backed 850mb winds and then veering to SW in the mid levels. That’s perfect for tornadoes IMO. I would love to see that ahead of a dryline, but there isn’t any instability to speak of and moisture is really lacking except for over far southern Texas. The dryline will be over higher terrain on Thursday so maybe it could eek out a tornado, but I doubt it. Both days deep layer shear should be AOA 50kts, which is more than adequate for supercells. This looks like a very sloppy setup with cloud cover clearing ahead of the dryline being issues on both days.
I have only done a tiny bit of forecasting, but I did start to draw out my weather maps for the NAM and GFS so I’ll try to get back on those later. I don’t think either of these days look like they are worth chasing unless you live close by, so I’m not going to put much effort into forecasting it. Once we get closer I’ll post a forecast and target, but for now I’m not going to put a whole lot of effort into it. I will try to add a little bit to this later though.

I just wanted to let everybody that is checking my blog for updates know that I have glanced at a few things, but I haven’t really forecasted yet. I will have a break to do that from 11:45-12:30 and I will post a forecast then, which will be focused on the storm chances the end of this week and the long range prospects for tornadoes.
I just wanted to make this post so nobody has to constantly check my blog for updates. I’m getting way too many hits then there can be people actually reading my forecast so some of you must be checking regularly for updates that aren’t there and I apologize for that. I would love to get my forecasts on a time schedule like SPC, but it’s just not possible when I’m at work. I’ll try to think of a better way to do things in the future. Anyway, if you want to see the forecast post it should be up by 1pm.