loadedgunchasing.com Blog

I could go over exactly what the jet stream is going to do over the next week, but nobody wants to hear that (they can go watch it at RAP or COD if they want), so I’m just skipping ahead to the anticipated action ahead.

The prospects don’t look as good today as they did yesterday. I am going off of the 12Z data, which is Zulu time so 7am model runs to those of you that don’t know these things. The run the models again at 00Z, which is 7pm. That data is not out yet, but it will be soon, so I may have to turn around and correct myself again. There is simply no reliable model out there right now. They are all showing stronger mid level flow coming into the cetral plains which is the first ingredient you need for severe weather. The other thing you need is instability and we should have heat and moisture, so although we might not get any really good setups in the next couple weaks, we should get some decent storms which is better than anything we’ve had in a long time.

If you can believe the GFS, which you can’t the first day I’m really interested in is next Saturday over northwest Oklahoma. The GFS is not along in forecasting a nice little surface low along the the frontal boundary though. The ECMWF is very similiar in it’s 12Z solution, so we may be on to something. I’m not going to say much about it since it’s a week out and ridiculous to pick apart details a week out on a year that the models have performed this poorly, but if it were to verify deep layer shear and instability would be adequate for supercells and with good directional shear in a triangle near the surface low tornadic supercells would be possible.

I will post again tomorrow when I’m sure the models will have changed again. What a joke. Just one good day. That’s all I want.

Instead of doing a rushed forecast I am going to take my time and get a good look at everything and post it tomorrow morning while I drink my coffee. As long as I drag my ass out of bed it will probably be posted around 11am.

There is certainly reason to be excited though. After a season that has been all but dead for tornadoes it looks like tornadic supercells are back in the forecast. I’m just as excited as everybody else, but I want to take my time before I post my forecast. I’m not pessimitic about this either btw. I am actually very optimistic and if I were a betting man I would definitely bet that we’ll have at least two tornado outbreaks in June. I’ll get the forecast up later though. thanks for stopping by and btw sorry for not posting nearly as much as I used to. This whole storm chasing business stuff has taken a lot out of me. The work never ends. Forecasting is part of my business though so my attention will be on the blog now.

My confidence is increasing greatly that the trough is finally going to be broken down. The 00Z GFS is almost out, but both the ECMWF and the GFS point to activity next Friday through the weekend.
I will post again in a little bit after the new run of the GFS comes out, but god it is a sweet sight to see that ridge getting sheered off.

We are going to do this a little backwards from how it normally would be done. We are going to check out the long term forecast before looking at the short term possibilities. I have no real reason for doing this except for I find the longer term slightly more interesting and I have a bit more to say on, while at the same time being very aware of the fact that we are talking about long range models here which are certainly not known for their accuracy.

On Wednesday of next week a high amplitude trough will be on shore of the western US with a large ridge holding firm over the plains and central United States. The question is who is going to push who around.
The trough has several jet streaks moving into it’s back side which will push the eastern side of the trough eastward as far as the central to eastern Rocky Mountains. This is where we hit the snag. There is nothing on the backside of the trough. If you look on the backside of the trough there isn’t a jet streak in sight, so basically this trough has just given it’s final shove and the jet streaks that helped move it that far east will begin to go over the tp of the central US Ridge.
Here is where the good news starts again. As these jet streaks top the ridge the shove the crest of it south, basically making it a lower amplitude ridge, in effect bring the southern branch jet stream over the plains again. This takes place on Friday if I remember right. And by Saturday one other potent jet streak in the southern plains will come in to knock the top off the central plains ridge.
This elongates the ridge into a ENE to soutwest axis. Then we have a trough over the Pacific Northwest and southwesterly flow over the pacific waiting to bring in another trough. That looks like good news to me. I am just hoping for an active period in June some time and getting the blocking patterns out of here is the first step.

Now for the short term
I’m not really excited about anything. I only looked at Kansas for this part of the forecast and I only focused on the plains for the first part of the forecast, so please no angry post from the Illinois or Indiana guys about how they have a chance of severe weather.
Monday is the only day I looked at and I seriously doubt I’l go out for that even though it will be close by. I may have to since it’s in the viewing area, but otherwise I would sit it out for sure. Weak instability and weak shear….. kind of important things for tornadic or even severe storms. Why would I go? We’ll see though. A lot can change. Before the models showed a much stronger shortwave that advected in good moisture creating strong instability and wind shear.

Let’s keep watching ahead a week though. That is our chance for a major tornado setup and that is what I am after. All I want is one major tornado outbreak. That’s it. It doesn’t seem like to much to ask for in tornado alley during the spring, but it’s a rare commodity this year.

I’ll update tomorrow.

I just noticed about 30 minutes ago that my pricing page when crazy when I tried to make some changes to it the other day. It’s amazing. I don’t know how this crap happens. The entire page looks the same except it’s like covered in L’s. I don’t know how it happens, but things like that happen all the time. I’ve got to get my website software on a home pc and get the most up to date version because I have a ton of work to do on it and right now I’m scared to touch anything.

Anyway, that wasted a little time, but I’m forecasting now so I’ll post shortly.

I am just leaving work and have a few things to do. Then I have a meeting this afternoon with a new customer for our storm chasing tours. As soon as I get home from that I am going to dive straight into the forecasting.
Normally I don’t look forward to forecasting, but now that there is something to look forward to and the fact that I haven’t really looked at the models much in several days, I am anxious to sit down and get into it.
That being said I don’t want to specify a time the forecast will be posted, but I’d put it in the 10-11pm time frame.

The GFS has a weak shortwave in the southern branch of the jet affecting the plains on Monday of next week, when it appears as if we transer into a progressive pattern with southwest flow over the plains once again. That will be absolutely great if it happens. This is peak season and there is still a lot of time left, but the clock is ticking.
I don’t want to go over details this far out, but by going off the GFS Monday’s setup would have tornado potential with very high instability and moderate deep layer shear. It would be a classic triple point dryline setup as well, which I love to chase the most.
We’ll wait until the 12Z comes out and see what it has and I’ll take a look at the European, but even if Monday doesn’t turn in to a chase day at least there are some signs that the upper air pattern is about to change.
I will post again later as soon as the new data comes out.

The explanation is going to have to wait until tomorrow. I got paypal started and I’m trying to get it up and running on my website. I also bought a new cell phone so I can redirect storm chasing calls away from my personal phone and I need to figure out how to use that pretty quick. Then finally I am trying to put some video together for a customer and another highlight clip together that will go out with packets to potential customers.
I have several other things that need to be handled very quickly, but I don’t want to go over all of them. I’ll make a post some time while I’m at work tomorrow though.

I just ran over the upper air pattern for the next 10 days and there isn’t anything to get excited about as far as tornadoes are concerned according to to the GFS, which can and is frequently wrong, but unfortunately I think it’s pretty much right this time.

I think somebody posted a comment on here or asked a question about why this happened. It was only a couple weeks ago if I remember right and I don’t know if I answered it properly or not, so I figured I would give an adequate explanation of what is going on and why our season has been ruined for tornadoes in the plains. I also want to take a slightly closer look at the forecast and touch on that too.

Right now I’m going to the batting cages to work on my softball swing. I’ve been routinely making an ass out of myself for a couple weeks now so I have some work to do. I will post later tonight on the topics mentioned above.

I haven’t been posting much lately because there really isn’t anything to talk about weather wise. It’s simply depressing. We are in the statistical peak of tornado season right now and there is nothing good in sight.
I did see a post on stormtrack a few minutes ago where somebody was all excited about the 00Z run of the GFS tonight, but I won’t get to see it until morning and when you are looking at long range models day to day variances are going to happen, so it may not be much to get excited about.
I do have plenty to talk about, but I try to keep my blog strictly about storm chasing and weather. I’v mentioned other issues a few times on here in the past, but there’s no need for that kind of drama. I want this to be a respectable site.
Speaking of which this page is going to be changing, hopefully in the next week or so. My blog will still be the sam, but this layout sucks and I need to make room for a blogroll and advertisements on the side. This blog software really sucks. I hate using it. Hopefully tech support can get me what I.m looking for or I’ll be forced to change sites again.
Well I’ll check out the GFS in the morning and if there is anything good I’ll let you know. later

That’s the 336 hour GFS which about as accurate as me with a fairway wood, but it’s trying so hard to break that high down, but it just can’t get it done.

I don’t know what to say. I know we still have a month of season left, but I am really starting to believe it’s over for any decent tornadoes, at least in the central plains. We may get some strong low amplitude waves with a negative tilt in the high plains that can produce a decent tornado if moisture isn’t a factor, but even that scenario seems unlikely at this point.

2006 has been recognized by the modern group of chasers as the shitty year. That has now been replaced. There is no contest. It’s not like there were even tornado opportunities and I just blew it. I didn’t really botch a forecast on any of the tornadod days. I missed some tornadoes, but it wasn’t because of my forecasting, but it was primarily do to issues outside my control. The same goes for everybody else. There just haven’t been many opportunities if you’re a plains chaser, which 95% of us are. If you got 5 tornadoes this year you’re a stud. If you got 5 tornadoes last year you’re a loser and need to find a new hobby. This is the same lesson that repeats itself as soon as you forget. Mother nature is unpredictable and can do very strange things. Ever time I start feeling like I got my forecasting figured out and am doing well I get force fed a big piece of humble pie. This is the same thing on a larger scale. Every spring we take for granted that there are going to be numerous shortwaves coming through the plains in the April, May and June that will produce tornaoes, but that obviously isn’t always the case. I didn’t think something like this was possible, but now I know. The upper air pattern skipped right past our typical spring wave train and into a blocking high. Stick a fork in it, because I think we’re done.

I could be wrong. Models aren’t accurate that far out, but all of them have been consistent and haven’t shown the slightest hint of anything to look forward and the clock is ticking.

Mother nature also has a curious way of balancing things out in the long run and a lot of people overlook the fact that there is a fall tornado season. Usually we get hit hardest in October around Kansas when it happens. It seems like about one out of every 3 years we’ll get a good tornado day in the fall. The are a bit tougher to forecast IMO and I’ve only gotten one fall tornado, but I’ll be ready for it.

We also have hurricane season which follows right on the heels of tornado season. If you like storm chasing and have never seen a hurricane you should try it once. Only go for a solid major hurricane (cat3-5) at landfall. If it’s going to be weaker than that it’s not worth the effort. I chased hurricane Rita stupidly enough by myself and it was less than pleasant at times. I’m ready to go again though. It’s an experience that is totally different from chasing supercells. Hurricanes are chaos. Hundreds of thousands of people are trying to get out and you are trying to get in, which can be tough because they’ll switch highways to all outbound traffic. Gas runs out within a few hundred miles of the coast so you have to plan for that. I saw some of the craziest shit ever chasing Rita and I didn’t stick around long afterwards. All I wanted to do was get out of the rain and go to sleep. People that tried to evacuate and run out of gas will literally camp and live in the ditches of highways. It’s like a war zone. Then after the storm there is shit everywhere. Everything is broken. It is deserted except for a couple police officers, but they only come out after the storm has passed. It is just something you have to see first hand. For any of my chase tour customers that might be reading this you’re welcome to go hurricane chasing as well lol. It’s a trip.

I haven’t checked the models today. I’m going to because I’m not busy at work today so I’ll get a forecast posted this morning. I’ll probably do it early and just use last night’s 00Z data instead of waiting on the 12Z to come out. If I wait on that it will be 4pm before I get a forecast posted lol. It seriously would be.

I haven’t looked at the models since Tuesday since my grandpa died and we had the funeral and other things going on yesterday, but I’m pretty sure the same bleak forecast is going to be what we have to look forward too. What is really interesting if you’re new to forecasting or even just interested in meteorology and how we are all following the jet stream so closely because that is how we predict long range weather patterns, then go to RAP and watch a week long loop (video) of what the jet stream is being forecast to do. You can really see the blocking high pressure in place and watch how an upper level troughs that begin to develop get shoved north or turn into low amplitude jet streaks along the canada border. I’ll post a link for it later. I have a meeting I have to go to right now. The old 8am production meeting. Always a good time.

I just got done doing some forecasting. I didn’t spend as much time on it as I should, but we got nothing but time so I’m in no big hurry lol.

On Thursday and Friday this weak a weak disturbance will initiate storms along a frontal boundary in the KS-NE border area. Right now it doesn’t look like anything that coupld produce severe weather, but even so I’ll keep any eye on it.

Beyond that I have no idea what is going to happen and anybody that says they does either has ego problems or should be making a lot more money than they currently are. I was looping the GFS 300mb charts and you can watch the high pressure over the western US that is initially flattening and shoving these mid to high amplitude troughs coming in from over the pacific up into Canada. This area of high pressure breaks downs in the day 7 period as a nice short wave in the polar jet and and strong jet streak in the southern branch push in from over the Pacific. But then you go and look at the extended range (that was only going 180 hours out) and watch the GFS then we are dealing with blocking highs for the next 16 days. There would be a few opportunities in the high plains, but they would be lacking in moisture. The GFS does have one very good looking high amplitude trough that moves in over the Rocky Mountains and just stalls out for like 3 days before it finally starts to break down and fall apart. I don’t understand that, but it is certainly the kind of trough tornado outbreaks are made out of if it could continue it’s progressive nature and take on a slight negative tilt as it entered the plains. If that managed to happen we would get to back to back tornado days, once of which would be a major outbreak.
That being said. There are a lot of what if scenarios right now and I’m just going to keep watching the models and try to establish some trends. Hopefully somebody smarter than me can shed some light on the issue because I hate the uncertainty and I really don’t like not having anything to look forward to.

I’m going to find a site where I can loop polar views of long waves and I might post again after that. I used to have one linked but I lost everything on my favorites list when my computer crashed. It just kind of does its own thing. I need a new laptop and this one will certainly be retired after this chase season.

I am going to push posting my long range forecast back until tomorrow morning. There are several more things I need to look into and I’m starting to nod off so it’s not going to happen tonight.

Basically the GEFS and GFS are sticking to their guns and developing a somewhat high amplitude trough off the northwest coast around the 23rd. Both models are consistent in slowly moving it on shore. The trough does become negatively tilted and quite strong for this time of year, but it does so over the Rocky mountaings, which isn’t going to cause any severe weather. If the actual pattern is a little more progressive than forecast we may be in good shape with a northern central plains into the high plains chase. After that it looks like we might see a series of lower amplitude waves tracking through the northern plains, which is good news if moisture can get up there, but bad news because the roads aren’t as good and it’s a long drive.

The models are terribly inaccurate this far out so anything could happen. I will post a forecast tomorow morning.

I was going to do my long range forecasting this morning, but right after I got up and started drinking my morning coffee my dad called and told me my grandpa died this morning. Obviously I got dressed and went over there to spend some time with my grandma, so I haven’t looked at anything yet today. No need to say sorry for your loss or anything like that. He was 89 years old. He had a good life, a loving family, a wife that was always by his side and living to be 89 is about all you can ask for. He had a long and happy life. I’m just worried a lot about my grandma. You know how that goes when one of them dies it seems like quite frequently the other dies a few months later. My grandma is a snappy little lady though so she may be just fine.

Anyway, I am going to start working on my forecasting now and will post a long range forecast tonight. I am also going to call tech support tomorrow and see if I can get my blog set up to where it will automatically alert the people that want it when I make a new post, so then you don’t have to keep checking back.

I will make my forecast post in a bit.

Ryan and I got on the tornado warned storm that was south of Hutchinson and followed all the way through Wichita. We got on it right as it went tornado warned, which obviously was exciting.
The storm was never terrribly impressive, but it did have a striated mesocyclone at times with a nice feeder band. There were also a few lowering with decent rotation and vertical motion, but nothing that ever got close enough to the ground for you to take it too seriously.
It was the only tornado warned storm in this part of the state until they later warned the storm south of us so I feel pretty good about our forecast and chase.
I was streaming video back to KWCH for the first time today so they used my video live on air several times when there were wall clouds and nice looking mesocyclones. I got to do quite a few call ins too which was nice, because it’s been a while sine I got on air. I was a little rusty, but did OK. The cell coverage sucked out there and I kept dropping my calls and my stream would go down. I have a cellular amplipher that is supposed to boost my signal and I swear it doesn’t do a damn thing. I’m going to try to send it back. It’s ridiculous that I am dropping calls 15 miles west of Wichita. I dropped two calls when I was live on air reporting on the storm. I am not really happy about that. I’m going to have to call the amp guy and check with verizon too because the aircard kept going into this dormant mode and everything would shut down. It’s like it just decides it wants to take a break for a while. I need a new laptop and the new equipment is coming next year. My stuff is getting outdated.

I’ll probably post a long range forecast tonight or tomorrow morning.

We are still sitting in Wichita right now. We were going to move north a little ways, but I think we are in as good a place as any. I just want to stay ahead of the boundary far enough to make sure I can adjust to the best storm before they get to me. It is all going to depend on how storms come off the front, so there isn’t any real pick a target kind of chase today. You just hang out ahead of the front, watch satellite to give you the general idea of where storms will fire first, which just reminded me that I need to do that, and then move into position.
I will keep forecasting and as soon as we leave my apartment I’ll post again with an update and I’ll also be on spotter network or you can go to this address, which is KWCH, the station I chase for, and watch me on there. It’s a little easier because there’s only like 6 of us on that map vs. hundreds on spotternetwork. Here is the link http://www.kwch.com/Global/category.asp?C=161874&nav=menu486_3_4 Just click on chaser tracker or something like that on that page and it will bring up a live map of where we are. I will be streaming today, but unfortunately the station won’t allow us to share the address.
Good luck to everybody chasing and I will post again as we leave town.

Map for tomorrow’s setup over kansas

First I’ll briefly go over tomorrow’s forecast and then I’ll discuss the long range tornado prospects.

Tomorrow reminds me of Wednesday with a little less instability and a little weaker shear. I’m referring to the area from the KS-OK border area back up towards the Emporia area in this forecast btw. I didn’t bother to look at the other places in the slight risk area.
I’ll be chasing tomorrow since it’s so close to home and it’s in the KWCH viewing area. There are slight differences between the NAM and GFS on the exact location of the frontal boundary, but that shouldn’t matter much. Both models are consistent with breaking out convection all the way down the boundary to the OK border by 00Z.
The CAPE is obviously more than sufficient for supercells, but the deep layer shear is very weak. However, both models have been consistent in producing a kink in the isobars causing surface winds ahead of the front to back some place between Wichita and where the frontal boundary intersects the OK-KS border. This area should enhance convergence and I expect a storm or storms will fire in this area before the cold front begins to fill out with convection. The backed surface winds will also act to increase deep layer shear and more organized storms, which is certainly a huge problem with tomorrow’s setup. This makes choosing a target very easy for me.
I’m going to sit in wichita and watch the front and keep a close eye on the changes in surface pressure and wind fields. Unlike Oklahoma, Kansas doesn’t have a mesonet, which sucks terribly, but if you know where to look you can find a Bush League version of the Kansas mesonet and it even updates like ever five minutes instead of being on an hourly schedule.
Surface analysis will be important, but honestly you could probably pinpoint the same area I’m looking for by watching visible satellite closely, which I’ll also be doing. I don’t expect much out of the day. somebody will probably see a scud cloud touch the ground so we’ll get a couple tornado reports and I’m sure we’ll get some hail, but it’s definitely not the kind of chase day I’m looking for in mid May, which leads me in to my next topic.

Long Range Forecast
I haven’t spent a whole lot of time looking at the long range models, but the earliest I could see us getting much action would be this time next week as a trough moves over the Pacific Northwest. The GFS has the trough falling apart as it approaches the plains, but the models have been terribly inaccurate so it’s certainly not a trustworthy source. If I remember right even if this trough did enter the high plains with so decent kinematics moisture would likely be an issue and preclude a good tornado setup.
The ensembles were all in very good agreement with this trough until it reached the Pacific Northwest and then the ensemble members went every where (ensembles are bunches of numerical models with slight differences in their equations and they average them out to give you the ensemble mean or average prediction).
The GFS has the long awaited pattern shift occuring at the end of the month. Some time around the 27th of May it shows a high amplitude west coast trough anchoring in over the Rockies. This is the typical spring patter we want and are used to this time of year so let’s hope to god it happens.
I’ll continue to post more on the long term prospects as it becomes more clear since there really isn’t much else to watch anyway.

Well I went out chasing with Ryan today. He usually goes with me. He drives while I ride shotgun and run the equipment. He’s come close to killing both of us several times now.

We moved south from Wichita intending to get on a storm near the OK-KS border area and try to stay on any storm that was either the tail end or had some distance between its southern side and the next storm down the front. Well we got on the right storm just south of the border. We kept moving east ahead of it and getting out to watch occasionally. There was a lot of rain way out ahead of it for some reason. It did look like a decent young storm trying to get organized.

Once we get on a storm I stop using the computer for the most part except for navigating. You can tell a lot more by looking at the storm than you can from radar. I went ahead and checked radar though to see what was going on around us and realized that the tail end of the storm we got on literally built south like 12 miles in a matter of 10 minutes and quickly broke off into its own individual cell. Of course it produced a tornado. I’m sure it was weak and we didn’t miss much, but it pisses me off really bad that we knew exactly what we needed to do and got hosed on it. The tornadoes over Kansas and Oklahoma are all going to be weak sister. We just didn’t have the kinematics to pose a serious tornado threat and LCL heights were very high. The CAPE was certainly there and that’s why we saw all those explosive storms.

Well now I have to take a look at Friday. I’ve been going in to work at 4:30am every morning and working 12 hour days, but there was an incident this morning that is typical bullshit out at work (family run business and I’m the bastard child). I’ve been busting my ass and working 12 hour days for 5 weeks and making the people in my department do it to. I never got a thank you or a “you’re doing a nice job” but I did get written up this morning because I suspended one of my supervisors for insubordination and they claimed I cussed at him, which is absord becuase number one I didnt and number two the human resources bitch, our CFO, my evil step mom and my dad with balls the size of raisins (that’s being generous) had a secret meeting without even talking to me or anyb involved first, so I guess they just came up with some imaginary storm. It’s unbelieveable. After they wrote me up I told them I’m not signing it and left. Fuck them they can try to figure it out thereselves because nobody out there has a clue about how that equipment works besides me. God I hate working there.

The good news is my attention is now tottally on storm chasing and forecasting. I also think I might have picked up a couple more customers today, which would be awesome.
I’m going to take a look at Friday and get a post up on that. I’m also giong to take a look at our long range prospects and post again.

I was going to post this on stormtrack, but then I thought about it and decided not to because I would inevitably piss somebody off that disagreed with me and on top of that I’d have to defend my statements with details. I don’t want to do that because I haven’t been drawing out charts like I some times do when I forecast so I don’t remember specific values or paramaters. I’ve just been glancing over things a bit, but I really don’t see a realistic tornado threat developing over southeast Kansas or northeast Oklahoma. I saw some people mentiong great wind shear along the front. I have no idea what sounding or map they are looking at, but there’s nothing great about it.
I think you are looking at high precipitation hailers along the front tomorrow.

Believe it or not I’m actually going to go chasing though. I realized today I’ve only shot a couple good hail videos so I’m going to go try to find the meanest hail storm, find a place to hide and then let it pound us. It should make for some awesome video if it works. I’m also going to keep a close eye on the tail end storm going up along the front. Always keep the tail end in sight and if there is a discrete tail end storm that is probably where I’ll be.

I’ll post a lot more in the morning when I’m not dragging ass and I’ve had a chance to look at tonight’s model runs. I’m super tired and going to bed in a second. Good luck too anybody going out chasing tomorrow if you don’t check out my forecast in the morning.

I think the cap wins today. The cap can be our best friend or our worst enemy. Oh well.

I am really busy at work so I only glanced at tomorrow and I will have to forecast later. I don’t like cold front veering flow setups for tornadoes though, so there’s your preliminary forecast lol.

In my regular jon I am a production manager at a manufacturing company and my working supervisor is gone so now I have to actually get out there and run production instead of just doing the planning and making sure everything is functioning properly. Basically I’m a lot busier than usual. I have pretty much given up on Tuesday. I just don’t see that cap breaking and if a storm does break through I think it will struggle with the cap.

I haven’t looked at Wednesday yet, but I am going to give it a 15 minute look over now and then post on it early in the morning. I have to be at work at 5 so I’ll probably post a forecast around 6 or so. SPC seems to be happy with the setup over northeast Oklahoma. Typically you have some problems with veering winds on the tail end like this, but I literally haven’t looked at a single weather map for this yet so I’ll find out soon. I’ll post again in a few hours. I gotta go grab a few more hours sleep.

The GFS and NAM are in somewhat good agreement and did improve moisture quality and tighten the gradient along the dryline. I only glanced over the 00Z runs though. I have to be at work in two hours so I gotta hit the sack.

Both models advect mid 60 dewpoints from central Oklahoma up to the dryline in the 18z-00Z time frame, which I think is overdoing it. I think we’ll see low 60’s which just won’t quite be enough to get the job done if a storm did develop.
The huge problem is that I don’t think a storm will develop. I didn’t get to look at any more forecast soundings since this morning so I really can make an educated statement on the strength of the cap, but it was strong and I just can see any sustained convection coming off the dryline Tuesday afternoon.
I will forecast tomorow and post again. here is a quick map I threw together.

Well I’ve been talking about Tuesday for about a week now if you don’t follow my blog. The trend of the GFS to show long range troughs as high amplitude and then flattening them out with each progressive run has quieted the discussion on Tuesdays potential. Moisture was a big concern to (when I say these things I am discussing the Kansas, Oklahoma panhandle far NE Texas panhandle and far Western Oklahoma since that is the target area).
Well the GFS and NAM have improved kinematics a bit with the latest run with a midlevel jet streak kicking through the Oklahoma panhandle near peak heating. The models have been extremely consistent in developing a dryline bulge in the Oklahoma panhandle region which would both increase convergence and back surface winds ahead of it, increasing the low level shear/tornado potential.
The other concern was moisture, which was meager at best over the past several days, well now the models show mid 60’s, which would be enough to eek by. Upper 60’s would be great, but I’ll take what I can get at this point.
CAPE reaches around 3000j/kg out ahead of the bulge, which would be a solid combination for supercells with the moderate deep layer shear that should be in place.
850mb winds are veering, which I hate, but I will discuss this further in a forecast I’ll post later tonight.

This is a higher end mediocre environment for tornadic supercells, which I’ll chase every day of the week, but the HUGE problem is the cap. I can’t find many forecast soundings in the area, but I checked Woodwards and looked at all the CIHN charts and that is one stout cap. It will be a bitch to break. I just don’t think it can get it done right now. There may be the possibility of an additional boundary along the bulge from overnight convection, but that’s a long shot.

I don’t have much time right now so I’ll forecast more and post later, but Tuesday is worth keeping any eye on, but I’m not optimistic. The low level shear with 0-1km SRH >300 really grabs my attention and EHI values in double digits indicates a very potent environment, especially when you consider the mediocre midlevel flow. I will post a forecast later this evening.

It looks like the next realistic chance of getting any tornadoes in the central plains will be around Friday of next week as another low amplitude shortwave moves through the high plains. This ironically looks eerily similiar to what the GFS was showing for Tuesday, which has gone to crap since then. We were also just talking about this issue on stormtrack today. The GFS seems to be having a problem with over amplifying waves in the longer range, which is what made Tuesday look good, when it probably won’t be a good chase day and is making Friday look good now. My guess is that the same will happen again, but who knows. Even if the GFS is telling the truth this time it is far from a high probability chase going off exactly what it shows now. Again the kinematics are there for the most part, but the moisture and instability are questionable. No reason picking this apart given the recent track record of the gfs. We might as well just sit back and wait.

The bigger if not the biggest question in the storm chasing world right now is when is this pattern going to break. Why do we have a zonal flow polar jet north of the Canadian border in May? I don’t know why . Simon Brewer made some suggestions that he came up with Jim Brewer. Those are two of the best chasers out there IMO, but I don’t know how good their long range forecasting is. We are talking super long range here. I know they are certainly a lot better than me at chasing and forecasting though so I listen up when they say something and they think we’ve already passed into our summer pattern prematurely with a death ridge over the US which flattens and pushes all troughs up and over the lower 48.
I’m not that pessimitic. It is only May 9th as I type this. Simon of all people shoudl know how long season lasts. He got amazing video that has been all over the national networks since it occured when a wedge tornado hit Manchester, South Dakota in late June. I think it was June 23rd. That leaves us a month and a half.

These last two pattern we’ve been in have certainly been stubborn (southern wave train now northern zonal) and it is probably the worst streak of bad synoptic scale patterns I’ve seen in my chase career, but none the less things will change sooner or later. I am going to throw the models out the window and say that our northen zonal flow patter will beging to break down in about 8-9 days. Basically a little over a week from now and we’ll get some decent activity for the last part of May. That is pretty much a guess, but it is also going off how long these kinds of synoptic scale/planetary scale patterns have held out in the past. I specify events, but you kind of get a gut feeling as you gain experience. I could very easily be wrong, and in reality I probably will be, but I’m hoping a high amplitude west coast trough if showing up on the models by thhis time next week and hopefully affect the plains in the beginning to middle part of the week (about 10 days out). That’s all I got for now. Not much of a forecast, but I don’t see any reason to do a forecast when the tools I’ve been utilizing are all but broken lately. I’ll post again tomorrow morning.

I still have a hair of hope for Tuesday, but I don’t think it is going to work out. There is still a bulge in the dryline over the Oklahoma panhandle, which the models have been very consistent in forecasting, which increases convergence and backs the winds off the northeast side of it. I don’t think we are going to be able to break the cap though. I only spent a little bit of time on looking at it this morning, but I’m still very pessimistic about the situation. The 850mb winds aren’t strong like they were before, so the great kinematics (wind fields) aren’t really there any more, but with backing surface winds deep layer shear should still be favorable for supercells.

I’ve spent more time looking at the long range pattern this morning than anything else and it doesn’t look pretty either.

I’ll post more on both of these later. I don’t really feel like typing and forecasting right now. I’ve been drinking coffee and watching the Indy 500 time trials. Now I have to take Duck for a walk and get out of the house for a while before I can tolerate any more computer time. I’m going to work on my website tonight. I have a lot of changes and updates to make on there, but I’m scared to do it because my laptop I do it on is so screwed up and the software I use for web building does whatever it wants. It’s amazing. I’m just doing the minimum work I have to on the website until I get a big home computer, which I’ll probably do in a couple months once season is over. I have to watch my account balance for my storm chasing business since I have to make sure I have plenty of money for operating expenses, so I really can’t afford to do it now. I don’t have the time to work on the website a lot anyway right now. Once season is over though I am going to completely redo the website and change my website building software. I’ll have it looking great withing 3 months or so after season is over and then I plan on starting my advertising campaign for storm chasing tours at the end of October. So as you can see I have a lot of projects and only so much money to do it with if you look at this as a real business. Since the season sucks I don’t have video revenues coming in either. I really look at this as my practice year for storm chasing tours. I’ve tried different methods of advertising and found out what works and what doesn’t. Next year will be the real deal and I have no doubt I will book up.

Well anyway, I’m going to run errands, hit the batting cages and screw off for a while and then I’ll get back on the computer.

My focus has not turned ahead to next Tuesday and a low amplitude trough ejects through the high plains. It would really really help if this were farther south, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

I am going off of 00Z data so I will update this later as soon as this morning’s model runs come out.
There are a couple interesting things about this setup. The primary surface low is way the hell up in Canada, but a secondary surface low will be located in the eastern Colorado area which should help to create a slight bulge in the dryline just south of there and increase convergence and back winds over the warm sector just north of there. Because of that, that is the general area I’m focused on right now, which is basically from the Nebraska panhandle down to west central Oklahoma/eastern Texas panhandle region.

Kinematics look good with this setup. Southerly 850mb winds up to 40kts out of the south in the KS-OK area. 500mb winds are a little weak, but I’m not worried about that this far out and even if it verified deep layer shear would be fine.
What does bother me is the dewpoints in the low 60’s only making it up to the KS-OK area. Without better moisture and greater instability this won’t be a major tornado event.
It is a long ways out so a lot could change, but this at least has the potential to be a good chase day.

I will update again in a couple hours after I get to see the 12Z data.

Huh… I don’t know what to think about tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll be chasing unless I see something that significantly alters my thinking on the setup. The problems The 00Z GFS and NAM both have precip breaking out along the frontal boundary into south central Oklahoma, so there seems to be some degree of consensus on that. I have not looked at any of the other models lately so that’s all I’m going off of.

Instability is going to be great with CAPE values AOA 3000j/kg all over the place in southern Oklahoma and northern Texas. The shear kind of sucks though. 850mb are veering very badly and basically turn nothreast along the boundary. 700-500mb flow is weak along the boundary as well. 10km SR winds are like 10kts and LCL’s are even surprisingly high.
I’m afraid what you are going to get will be a big sloppy mess. There is something to say for the extreme CAPE that will be present though and it can offset a lack of shear to produce some good storms. I think if I lived close by I would chase, but I’m going to sit this one out. I think you’re going to get some HP monsters if the wind fields are sufficient to maintain supercell structures. I didn’t examine the hail ingredients, but with CAPE like that you could get some nasty hail out of those storms, so if you do live close by you might want to watch out for that.

Now I have to look ahead. I am so tired of this zonal style flow pattern we’ve had over the plains. It is really getting old. Where is our west coast trough? The GFS has done a horrible job. I think it’s shown a nice trough digging into the southwest three times now and then just totally flip flopped back around and kept us in this straight jet stream setup. It sucks something fierce. May is supposed to be when the real tornado season starts and we are in a bad pattern for real tornaodes. I’m going to look ahead a bit tonight so I may make a brief post on the next seven days or so or I may just wait until morning to do it.

Sorry fot the tenth time for not making the schedules that I set for posting forecasts on here and for not getting much posted lately. Hopefully things are going to start slowing down for me over the next couple weeks. I have a ton of stuff going on right now between my chasing related business and my regular job and I find myself with no extra time. If we ever get a really good setup I’ll make time though lol.

My forecast for tomorrow will be posted in the next hour or two with a more in-depth forecast coming later tonight. I am going chasing tomorrow.

I just got a heads up on the forecast for next week and glanced at it. As the informer mentioned to me, this does “look like the real deal”. The GFS is shwoing good evidence of a trough ejecting into the plains which would be a welcome change of pace and could bring tornadoes on Tuesday.
This Friday doesn’t look too shabby either. I will be posting on both of these days later.

I have my first team softball game tonight, so I may post briefly around 5pm. If not I will post a forecast around 10pm tonight.