Weather on My Mind

Awaiting the new chase year

2011-04-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy and cold spring. We have upgraded our web site (http://weather.cod.edu) which has some amazing new uses. It has taken a lot of time but I think it is worth it. Unfortunately, I have not thought about chasing around here.

Tornadoes have been abundant this April. Such an extreme amount of cold weather across the northern half of the US with slightly above normal temps across the south - severe weather is only to be expected.

Progressive waves should continue. And so as we set out next Friday, I am looking forward to enough severe weather events to keep all of us COD stormchasers happy.

Chase 1 Ends...good and bad

2010-05-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

Well, the good news is that no one is hurt and was saw a tornado. The bad news is we lost our roof rack after driving into a downed power line.

We had been driving back to stay with the storm, nothing major just trying to get back to where the supercell was. We turned a curve and we say the lines hanging across the road a few feet above the ground. Ryan tried to stop and avoid the wires but it was not possible. The wires hit
across our windshield and moved up across the windows. No problems until it hit and caught the rack. We carried the wires for a while until it knocked everything off the roof. We were afraid there might have been live wires and were afraid at first to get out of the van. Van 2 pulled up and shown the lights, saw that we had pulled away from the wires and had lost the rack.

Laura determined that the wires were not live any more (along with a few cops who came on scene) and they moved the wires off the rack. They had come unraveled and it was pretty cool.
We lost the wires from all the antennas and the sleeve on the fiberglass roof had come undone. Luckily for us, Nichole and Amy had been chasing nearby and came to our aid. We were able to salvage most of the stuff into the back of Nichole's truck. We left behind some of the black conduit figuring it was easy enough to replace them. We left the scene and found a different hotel room in Jonesboro. Lots of little things to do but that is the basic story. All are well and the van has minimal damage. Our rack, well...that will require some serious work.

Oh...and we saw a nighttime tornado. That was cool. Tough day. More later.

Paul

Chase One Finally going chasing

2010-04-29T09:09:00.000-07:00

After a depressing start to our trip we are starting a chase today. We left last Thursday and chased Friday but were met by a letdown of storms unable to fire in southeastern NE.Saturday was a cold mess with the only good storms racing through Mississippi in areas almost impossible to chase. I never have chased in MS and may never end up there by choice.

Anyway, today's forecast looks like this. Let's hope I can update this blog many times this year with good summaries of successful chases.

I love it when the models start to follow my analysis. I was not sure of the problem with the CA soundings last night and whether or not the 00Z run was affected by that. I was surprised at the extent of the low to the north. This morning’s run seemed better with the low and attendant triple point further south. We did a lot of analysis last night and this morning and saw the development of a greater CIN layer that moved from SW KS to SE NE this morning. In its wake, lower mid-level lapse rates and weaker capping are also present. Cooler mid-level air looks to advect in and thus the model eradicates CIN by 00Z. Additional forcing is possible with as the SE CO low moves east and deepens slightly in association with jet diffluence. As Rich pointed out subtle shortwave INVOF four corners region may affect parts of the southern and central plains by later this PM.

I believe storms are most likely to initiate in the SLN-HUT-GBD area. It would be nice to have 84/61 and that is what we are hoping for initially. Modified DDC sounding indicates no cap left at those readings. The WRF does not have a tight moisture gradient as expected and we are hoping that those values can make it to region of greatest low-level convergence. Storm motion may be along quasi-stationary front and tornado-potential looks to be enhanced if not undercut too rapidly given relatively high LCL’s.

I would think other storms are possible down the dry line toward the OK border given 60 dews. Currently we are watching for the 63 dews to advect north and slightly west across north TX.

After a long week of nothing, we are hoping for daytime convection. We will also be happy with good lightning tonight!

Nebraska in July

2009-07-13T23:42:00.000-07:00

8 Hours on one storm. Pretty amazing day despite no tornado.

Started in Newcastle and decided to follow the incipient storms north of the Black Hills. Had to cut through the Hills which are beautiful but slow! Finally caught the southern supercell west of Philip SD. The storm had strong rotation but a lot of dry air in the RFD and only once looked like it might spin out a quick tornado 18 miles west of Kadoka SD.

We followed the storm south and east and had various reports on Spotternet. Despite the good environment just to its southeast it never got rooted in the BL. A few occlusions with not strongly buoyant air and tornadoes would not occur. The storm continued to have an elevated appearance until a little later when it suddenly changed its look to a more traditional supercell base. Even still, the storm had a problem not becoming outflow dominant. The low-level rotation never tightened up at all despite some nice vortex arch bookend couplets.

As the storm approached Rosebud a tor report was announced. We were close but never saw anything that looked suspicious. The storm looked more HP-ish at the time and rain may have obscured our view. But then the inflow started to pick up. A few times near the border, travel was impossible with almost due easterly inflow jets picking up dust and reducing visibility to zero. Inflow winds were measured from 35-40 kts but were estimated to be higher with possible gusts to 50. A wrong turn as a storm merger happened led us down the wrong way. We found a way back to Rt 83 through a back road and were treated to a massive and awe-inspiring beast of a storm. Inflow winds were howling and lightning was frequent. With large hail repots from Valentine we didnt want to mess with it. We saw the RFD start to surge so we headed south out of its fury while a few other chasers got munched by the RFD bite. We are headed to GRI to see what tomorrow holds. An excellent day and a great storm.

Paul

One more day?

2009-06-21T07:54:00.001-07:00

We have been getting in late every day. This will be our 9th straight day chasing. I am VERY tired. But it has been worth it.

Yesterday, we intercepted a very scary HP storm near McPherson yesterday. The storm went from nothing to 100kts gate to gate shear in 5 scans as low-level meso was very strong at times. Several tornadoes were reported but we were unable to see anything. Meso was on northeast side of this storm with huge RFD and low shelf along that region. We were close enough to look into the notch but the storm would occlude and heavy precip would wrap around it. The only way a tornado would have been seen was from up close within the precip, a place I did find safe enough. This happened twice and even though we were only a few miles away there was no way to see it. The best chance we had was actually right before total dark when the storm was near Herrington. We had a great view but at that time, no tornado touched down.

Very much worth the trip! Great storm and a lot of lightning.

One of the Best

2009-06-17T23:04:00.000-07:00

I must say, we worked for things today. Quickly, we left Salina at 11:00 in the morning thinking we would have an easy start to the day and a good lunch in Concordia. Instead, we started chasing by 11:30 as a storm formed on the warm advection pattern which was coupled with a shortwave trough.

It was quite frustrating as two cells formed. We got on the wrong one and were unable to get in front of the second when a tornado was reported. By time we got east of it, the storm had weakened and no longer had a tornado threat. Fearing to miss our target area, we quickly made our way back. We had a quick McDonald's lunch and were soon chasing a severe storm near Kearney NE. The storm tornadoed while we were still some distance away. Although we saw the last few minutes of it, we were too far to get to it for pictures and to feel like we accomplished anything good.

We stayed with the storm and were able to chase it quite well. It spun quite a bit and several times tried to tornado, but it just would not do it. Fearing we had missed the best time for tornadoes, we almost went to another storm to the northwest. However, this storm was still sucking air. We watched it continue to spin and look pretty nasty. We decided to position ourselves across the Platte River east of Grand Island. It was a good call since it tornadoed a bit soon after. A small debris cloud under the storm. I must say it was confusing and it looked like there were vortices rotating everywhere.

We then went east on RT 34, along with a caravan of chasers. Yech!

I looked at radar and thought there was a good place ahead of the hook a mile further to the north on a dirt road. It turned out fortuitous as we then saw a small tornado to the west. But it quickly redeveloped south of our position. About 1/2 mile south.

We watched this storm from the northwest side of the meso, right within the hook echo. Although we had fast inflow winds, I never felt we were in an unsafe place for the tornado, as close as we were.

Soon after, the storm became quite large.

Later, we saw several power flashes as it was a large cone tornado with a dust barrel around it.

Fortunately for the town of Aurora, the tornado roped out before it hit the city limits. All in all a great chase day. We are in Freemont NE hoping for another good day tomorrow.

Paul

Cool Supercell

2009-06-17T07:16:00.001-07:00

Sorry I have not been updating. I will do a review later. Things have been busy in a pretty good way!

Yesterday, we hung out in SE KS in Sedan. After watching cu's fail in NW OK,we started north knowing that the advective processes near sunset would initiate convection slightly elevated. We watched several soft banded stratus bottoms with rock hard convective towers above them. They still pressed against a very formidable cap and softened quite a bit. Thinking it might be a few more hours we were wondering where anything would go. Seeing explosive development on radar near ICT we made a navigation error which cost us about 20 minutes through the winding roads of SE KS. We did manage to get into the notch about 20 minutes before sunset and were treated to quite a wonderful supercell.

There was fairly weak inflow but there were two times that I thought a tornado were possible. The first had a good solid wall cloud (the funnel reports being quite unreliable) although nothing that screamed tornado imminent. The second was when the storm was right on top of Winfield. It looked like the storm was clear-slotting (very dark) and there was what *might* have been a large funnel. No power flashes underneath, we decided to drive up to get a closer look...1/2 mile away. It quickly fell apart and did no apparent touchdown. I didn't think it would based on very loose velocity structure in the midst of the hook.

Nonetheless, a good end to a long day of waiting!

Mesoscale Mayhem

2009-06-13T21:41:00.001-07:00

Last night, my post was this as a call: "Springfield CO to Gage to Shamrock to AMA polygon."

A big supercell was working its way from Southeast CO to Gage OK. Big storms were between AMA and Shamrock. The only problem was we were on a crappy storm north of AMA and lost due to un-see-able (at least to me) mesoscale features.

The day was frustrating because although the environment was good in this region, we could not find a good initiator of the storms. We spent a lot of time in Stratford debating whether or not to go NW or S. Finally, with a good environment south, we headed south toward Dumas and then Amarillo. As we headed there an old out-flow boundary flew north and we could see cu's firing along that boundary. Then they exploded upon that boundary. We were underneath the storm in downtown AMA when the first severe warning was issued. we headed east with it and it started to look alright for a bit until a left split came flying north. After that, the day became dominated by left splits and storms that that poorly interacted with each other.

My guess is that the right favored storms were contingent upon them being surface based. The OFB made them slightly elevated and so I think the straight line part of the hodograph that the storm actually saw was straight with maybe even a slight anticyclonic favor. In any event, the storm died.

We headed to AMA for dinner and saw most of the Vortex 2 crew feeling the same way as we did. Wondering why we picked a favorable spot that just didn't get lucky.

Science should not depend so much on luck. But I guess it does.

The End of Trip 2.a and 2.b

2009-05-25T18:05:00.000-07:00

We are almost home. Its amazing to think about the way the weather has been. Almost beyond comprehension. To put it in perspective, we have not had a weather watch anywhere in the country since Saturday. 9 DAYS AGO!! I would not have thought it was possible to go that long in May without some weather watch. In fact, there has not been a slight risk or more since Wednesday. And yet, despite all this, we had some good experiences on this trip. We saw a number of storms, drove through some hail, saw a lot of lightning and saw amazing parts of this country. We went on tours of NCAR and Scott AFB, we saw the only remaining wagon ruts from the Oregon trail, went to Estes Park, ate amazing food, and crossed the Platte River 2318 times.

We learned some things too about group dynamics and maintaining a positive attitude when all else goes wrong. I must hand it to this group of stalwart chasers that despite many trying circumstances, they never let it get to them. They were always positive about the experiences. and learned to accept those things which cannot be changed. I feel that all of character was improved.

Would we have changed the weather if we could have? Of course. But there were many great experiences that may be once-in-a-lifetime experiences. And we have stories to tell. And we will always remember that "Stupid May without Severe."

Of course I am hoping that THAT is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Making good out of bad

2009-05-21T22:26:00.000-07:00

I haven't written for a while because it gets depressing with the weather being so bad. Vortex 2 is a very important research project that is basically getting nothing for the 12 million dollar price tag. I feel worse for them. And I feel worse for my students, since it is they who pay for the experience.

And so I commit to do what I know to be best for the students and their educational experience. As we work hard, I can only hope that they truly appreciate what I am trying to do. The ones who have been around for a while are big in teaching this lesson. I hope that the newer students learn to appreciate the intricacies of weather.

And on this trip, I think they have. I like the way this trip is going. We have had some fun storm experiences. Not great, but not bad either. And today was awesome. We spent a couple of hours at NCAR learning the bigger nature of Meteorology. THanks Eric Nelson for helping us set that up. It was a great day.

Boulder also gave us a time of bonding and fun with micro-brewed beer, good food, swimming and a lot of laughs!

So even though Nature is giving us a lemon, we are using it to sweeten our beer!

Wow...Worst Weather Pattern...EVER

2009-05-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

2009 will probably go down as the worst severe weather pattern anyone will (hopefully) ever see. It is the most stagnant flow I have ever seen. Combine that with an almost tropical cyclone in the Gulf of Mexico, and the leads to the pattern least conducive for severe weather I, and most any others, have ever seen.

So we leave today with very little expectation. We will head to the Nebraska Panhandle tomorrow and hope that the forecast storms may have a slight chance and showing supercellular structure. After that, it looks even worse. We will be heading to the mountains to try to get some understanding of mountain meteorology and maybe take some pictures of of lightning with a mountain backdrop.

I hope to never see another year like this as long as I am storm chasing. The rest of the world is probably happy.

Bow echo

2009-05-16T06:23:00.000-07:00

Had we not had this extensively sucky pattern, I would have considered yesterday an interesting chase. We chased north central to east central MO. Somewhere northwest of Columbia (De Witt) was our target as the storms came through into NW MO. It was a healthy looking bow/HP on radar and when we saw there was an inflow notch on the east side, we were hoping that the storm was hugging the warm front. Missouri and there "wonderful" obs showed cold air to the north and warm air to the south of I-70. We were not sure exactly where the front was. We found it. About ten miles north of I-70 because when we approached the storm temperatures were in the mid 60's. Very strong ENE winds were flowing into the storm.

It soon lost its "inflow notch" and started to become a bow. Which was cool. We stayed at the apex of the bow for a long time. IT was dark and scary, some OK lightning and a great mix of boiling shelf clouds and aqua colors. The area was "chaseable" for a while although a little windy. Eventually, we headed south to get to the Interstate to get across the river. Of course, somewhere closer to STL the storm was tornado warned. We tried to head north no matter what but the roads NW of STL are awful. We just couldn't make it. We were in a lot of wind for a long time and were actually traveling along the intersection of two outflow boundaries, hoping to have a rogue storm develop in the cold air. Alas, it was not to happen.

Ending up in IL we were in the warm air (still 81 at 7:30) but these storms were bound to be elevated above the front. We eventually called it off as our last hopes became dashed as cold air preceded rain by about 10 minutes.

And now we go home and figure out what few days we want to go sight-seeing.

Paul

The start of Trip 2.a

2009-05-14T22:49:00.001-07:00

We do a quick one day chase then go home and start up later this week. But for now, we are in S Charles MO.

Models have changed their tunes quite a bit. And the GFS and WRF are greatly different, IMO. Right now we are in STL. I agree that the TX PH may be interesting if the WRF is correct, but it seems that the model is grabbing much too stout mid-level flow for what appears to be an overdone shortwave. Nonetheless, for those southern plains people, might be worth watching.

Although storms will most likely fire in southern KS, I just feel that the in-between nature of that area will have less than ideal winds. Nonetheless, storms could be large and have some low-level turning.

Further northeast toward Kansas City, it appears that there might be some chance early, but the surface winds appear to veer. This goes well with the poorer southern KS play as it puts ICT in a col point. Again, not ideal. Of course this is to believe the model. I would tend to pay attention to the GFS more because it has been more consistent. That brings us to MO/IL. Early action will be the case, as both models develop a lot of precip overnight and into tomorrow. That will create an effective baroclinic zone pretty strongly east of the so-forecast mesolow. Nonetheless, progged wind fields look pretty good across eastern MO and WRN IL.

The 22Z PIA forecast sounding is pretty impressive in both model worlds. Storms that can fire along and just south of the front should have excellent shear, especially of there is some semblance of a low. And assuming that overnight convection doesn't hose things up too badly. I may be out to lunch, but I am thinking somewhere from Macon/IRK to Quincy/Hannibal to Beardstown IL could be a prime location tomorrow.

FWIW, I throw that out!

The Last Three Days

2009-05-03T10:04:00.001-07:00

Sorry not to have blogged for the last few days. I can give excuses and reasons but I am not going to.

So there.

Really, they were not anything spectacular. Friday had looked good originally. But the lack of a wave and good shear gave us pretty disappointing storms. We ended up down in NW TX and were about 45 miles north of a storm that actually tornadoed. The problem was the shear was bad. The tornado was pretty wimpy and only around for a few minutes. Despite explosive CAPES in the area, we actually needed something to make the storms better. The day before, low-level winds were southeast at around 15 knots underneath 25-30 kts at mid-levels. Friday, it was 5-10 kts at the surface, not very well backed, and not that strong at mid-levels (around 25kts.) It amazes me that such subtle differences result in big differences in storm structure and evolution.

Now we did catch up to that storm and it pulsed up and down. Sometimes looking good and others not so good. The anvil became crisp when the storm was good and very wispy and diffuse when weak. One time it occluded and then rain wrapped into it. Someone reported a possible tornado. We were south of it but it would have been shrouded in rain. In any event, it was pretty lame. We followed it for a while and saw one time when it had good low-level rotation. It never occluded and never looked like it would tornado. Of course, some chasers who saw a wisp of dust underneath it claim it was a tornado. It is why I cannot stand some chasers. All they want is the glory of a tornado. They do not care about science or forecasting or learning. They are not worth much and I wish it were out-lawed. How about chasing is only legal when three or more are in a car. It would lessen the traffic out there.

Oh well...back to the chase. We did get into some hail (quarters maybe) before we got south of the storm. It started blowing cold and we knew it was history. We cruised north to another pretty meaty storm, but by time we got there, it shriveled into nothingness.

Saturday was a better set-up except for the cloud cover that would not go away. Soon after lunch storms broke out all over. We followed many of them to the northeast where a bow echo was underway. It looked like there were some QLCS tornadoes and a few times it looked good on radar. The warnings said the storm was moving northeast at 35 but we were traveling northeast at 65 and could not catch them. In fact, we stayed in the core of heavy rain for more than a half an hour. Lots of good CGs but other than that, not much to report. We stayed the night in Little Rock in the middle of lake Arkansas. The whole state is flooded. We are on the way home now.

I hate typing in the van so I will say goodbye till trip 2, May 15!

Paul

Can't it just go easier?

2009-04-30T23:57:00.000-07:00

What a weird day. Targeted areas along the Red River near Vernon, TX. Had a great lunch at Rock Inn in Seymour. Awesome place! Gotta have some homemade pie!

Anyway, after watching the outflow boundary (OFB) head a little north we decided to cross into OK. Watching cu's bubble along the dry line and further NW in OK we thought we would hedge our bets and play in the middle. We sat for about 2 hours in Granite OK. We waited and waited until after 7PM. Nothing was going on so we called the trip and were going back to the hotel in Lawton. Twenty minutes later we turned the corner and as I looked to the NW a series of strong towers had broken the cap. Just then Sam from the weather lab called me and said it was showing up on radar.

Of course! Couldn't have started twenty minutes earlier.

So we cruised north. It took a while but we made it just in time to watch a tornado warned storm about two miles to our north. We saw an attempt at a low-level occlusion with a rainy core wrapping into the updraft. No tornado was visible and we had a very good view of it. We watched a while longer before heading west to reposition to the storms south. We watched an incredible lightning display until the storm died soon afterward.

It would have been nice to have been there a little earlier. But at least we got there. That is 8 supercells and three tornadoes in 7 days.

And tomorrow and Saturday look good!

See David Mayhews site for an amazing wealth of great pics from tonights storms.
http://www.davidmayhewphotography.com/

A few more details

2009-04-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

Pretty frustrating day as I mentioned on the nowcast part of the boards. Left Odessa after lunch to see storms to the north and a red box issued for them. We cruised north realizing the dry line had mixed further east than I though. I should have known that it was going to be loosely defined since it was not dynamic with a well-defined pressure trough. As we finally got back into the better moisture near Big Spring it became apparent that nothing was going to happen with that wave. What is it with all the high frequency short waves this year?

We saw the storm that was about 50 miles south of Odessa go tornado-warned but decided we were going to stay within our forecast area and not chase it.
We did think that the newly formed outflow boundary would be a great mechanism for new storm growth and tornadic potential with enhanced vorticity. But of course, no storm formed in that region at all. So after making it to Gail, TX, it became clear to us that the only real good storms we north of that boundary along some of the older (and colder) ones further to the north. Wind fields were weaker but you have to have storms before you can have supercells.

So we flew north (gosh I had forgotten how beautiful that part of TX is!) The storm that came off from Plainview (which btw was in an area of cu's that had been present north of the dry line bulge) was moving more easterly. Further to the west that was a real good supercell with tor's out and several other cells forming on some old boundary. They had a more northward moving motion to them and I felt that the storm out west could move just south of those others and move right along a better moisture or outflow feed.

As we were near Floydada, we could see excellent tower growth to the NW so we pressed northward. As we approached there was a high based shelf cloud that looked almost base-like. Given the conditions, I felt that could not be the true base. Matt Powers texted me that on radar it looked like a big cold machine and I agreed. Nonetheless, I felt we needed to get a better look. Inside that base (and wide RFD) I saw a lowering, not unlike other HP storms with the low scuddy wall cloud. Given its proximity to earlier convection I wanted to make sure that it was really cold inside there. Heading north our driver radioed that it was a tornado he was observing possibly. I warned him to be careful of those words over radio and we were still too far to be sure.

We moved north and it was a large barrel-like cone as Scott Blair indicated. We were driving right to it. We got out and snapped some pics.

A second tornado formed to its east at the same time. Enhanced shear along the gust front I reckon. We got onto some really hairy mud ruds so we headed back south and west. A student believes that there was a third tornado and I tend to believe him. (so that might make Scott B's third if he did not see the secondary needle.)

After heading south I saw vigorous cloud growth and figured I would bust south near Dicken's to get to these storms in less tainted air. There were impressive towers. Just east of Dickens we saw a great looking and scary storm. Todd Lindley from LBB called me and said they were interested in that storm as an OFB from the north storms was surging south and about to interact. We watched for a while and there was very strong low-level rotation. Unfortunately just as I though it had a chance to tornado, temperatures dropped like a rock and I knew it did not have a chance.

We were not going to play in the core so we bolted west and south to get out of its beasty path. Lots of loops and CC bolts made it fun to watch for a while. All in all, a saved day.

Cedar Hill Tornado!

2009-04-29T23:01:00.000-07:00

After a long, very frustrating, but greatly rewarding day, we saw a tornado. It is very late and I am tired, but the basics are:

1 - We saw two tornadoes (maybe three) north of Floydada near Cedar Hill.

2 - We caught another storm that was close to producing a tornado until it laid down very cold outflow.

Some success finally!

2009-04-29T09:28:00.001-07:00

A very frustrating day was saved by an hour's worth of excellent storm viewing. Our target area convected twice only to sucker us away from storms further to the north. The lack of low-level lapse rates probably killed us. More about that later when and if I have time. It was frustrating because we kept going around in circles. We finally got back to Pecos when the storm on extreme southern NM started getting its act together. WE decided we could catch it if it turned right (which it did!) and we were treated to a great view of a pretty storm. Never felt a tornado was imminent although there was some good motion beneath the wall cloud.

I took a few picture which I will try to post later. My card reader may not be working so it may have to wait.

Today:

Two outflow boundaries are present: one near and just north of LBB and the other about two counties south of there. Dry line will take a while to really get going and will probably not make it too far east due to the presence of intense and deep moisture. Great EML will cap things a bit but allow for explosive development later today. Morning analysis and RUC mesoanalysis indicate excellent mid-level flow will probably be further south than the areas of the northern TX PH.

I believe that the nose of an analyzed and forecasted 259 jet will makes its way into the south plains, tighten the dry line and bulge it slightly. The proximity of the OFB's and the dry line should be there target point. Early target will be in the Lamesa/Seminole region. Would not count out just north of LBB.

As others have pointed out, 700mb is weak and I do not have much hope for improvement. Although it may be sufficient for wet-classic type structure early. Monster hail may be a problem with a well pronounced dry prod west of the area. WRLY UT jet flow may also throw that hail and precip to the east so be careful from where you observe these storms.

BTW...tomorrow may have more impact in TX that originally thought....if the WRF is to be believed.

Dang! I wish I were going to Mexico!

2009-04-27T22:24:00.000-07:00

Confusing models from earlier but looks as though upslop will be difficult to get rid of tomorrow across the southern panhandle. The WRF shows nothing good but not sure about the ensemble members. I suppose they could break or be completely overdone.

Nonetheless, it is late so here are the pros: Great shear for supercells. Large low-level SRH. Mean flow that is slow. Potentially a lot of instability. Dews across the coast are in the low 70's. DRT looks like moisture is about to make its way up the valley.

In short, Saragosa and areas tucked in to the Davis Mountains could be under a threat tomorrow. Serranias del Burro will probably go big tomorrow and other times this week. I am hoping for a storm on the US side (no border crossings for us this year!) and if you look at the progged sounding for DRT, it is impressive.

So, we leave LBB early tomorrow and see if we can determine west to the Davis Mountains or South to the Rio Grande.

Paul

BTW...we will NOT go to Mexico. Not this year. Too dangerous. Someday if the US stops using drugs and we kill all the drug lords.

What a bust

2009-04-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was lousy. So many things went wrong. Very little went right. Big steep lapse rates but no cap. Lot of shear if the storms turned right which they didn't. A thousand storms to choose from, only a few rotated. Only one produced a few tornadoes. Overall, not good. We saw one storm that was alright. Near the Red River southwest of Altus, OK. Had a cool wall cloud and for a few minutes looked like it wanted to tornado. But it did not.

I think the storms moving to the north east (probably from 210-220) and surface winds from the southeast (at most from 135) just didn't give a lot of chance to for low-level shear to really catch hold. No long-lived supercells. For what was expected, we should not have had to try to find the little bits of rotation in these storms. The one that produced tornadoes was nice for a little while. A lot of storms had gone through about the same region and did nothing. The one did.

We will never see everyone. We will miss storms. But that was too difficult yesterday. You were either there or someplace with a whole lot less promise.

I did say northern Iowa looked good. And sure enough, they had a tornado. Figures.

People liked the storms. So I was happy for them. I can't wait to show them storms that make me excited. Maybe tomorrow.

Today was a down day (mostly.) Stupid MCS ripped through Texas and took all the good juice with it. Tomorrow has promise. We are going to Cagle's for some good rib-eye tonight. Yeah! And Shiner. Yeah again. Not all is bad in Texas!

Paul

BTW...Old Faithful in Mexico had a cool looking supercell again today! Too bad there are so many shootings. And Swine flu. One day, it will be safe to chase there and I am going to again!

Day 3...early start

2009-04-26T08:35:00.000-07:00

Got a call this morning from Sean at 8:10 (Grrrrr) but he informed that an MCD had been issued for our area. Oh well...got up and saw that we still had some time. We are all ready. Lots of stuff going on today. Big shortwave coming in from NM and it should influence stuff soon. But here is the key.

Some outflow boundary is sitting in place southeast of AMA. Storms should fire along dry line is it moves east. If a storm can interest that boundary, good things could happen. So we are going to target between Clarendon and Silverton TX.

Day 2 Bust

2009-04-25T22:21:00.000-07:00

What a let-down. So many hopes and so little to show for it. IMHO today really sucked. Others may say there were a lot of good storms. But after many many years of chasing I know when storms are good and these were not. Of course, to hear the reports from other chasers, you would think a super outbreak were occurring. I can't stand so many chasers. But more on that later.

So the dew points sucked. We were early on the storm in Grey County. 87/56 is not what we were expecting. Where were the mid 60 dew points? Didn't show up till later and even then, they were not abundant. Storm bases were about 8000-9000 feet it seemed like.

Other storms were moving northward. Don't ask me how that happened. Didn't see a split....just storms moving north. Of course, our storm played with the front and appeared to go through a few occlusions. Just no chance to tornado. We heard someone report condensation to the ground. WE were right there. Didn't see anything close. Either it was bogus (so many other stupid reports today) or it happened so fast that we just didnt happen to see anything. I remain skeptical. There are not many chasers I really trust these days.

Maybe that is the problem. Chasers who chase without really paying their dues. I understand that sometimes it is groups like mine that create the problem. Chase once or twice, then go out on their own. Maybe I just resent that chasers can just do stuff now without really having to learn. To struggle and to bust in the old days gave us the knowledge that so many others seems to take for granted. And I doubt that they really have the experience to know what is going on. I have seen and heard chasers talk about features that are completely mis-identified.

The forecast (and I was there with all of them) just proved how little we know. My guess? Lower dew points due to greater vertical mixing. Slightly shortwave ridging allowing for dry air to descend into the CBL. Weak convergence across the whole frontal boundary. Weak convergence along the pseudo-dry line. Not much of a dynamic dry-line. Scarcely a trough could be analyzed.

We did what we could but it was a let down. And very little good lightning. Glad I can forecast that...NOT! No good structure. Just a real let-down after what I was expecting. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Only in golf and chasing would a crappy day be followed by excitement to do it again.

A bad day chasing beats a good day at COD any day!

Paul

PS Thanks for all the nowcast help. I would love to go through stuff since there is some stuff that is lacking on the understanding of the event. I hope many of the nowcasters can work with me or Matt soon to see how to do stuff. But much thanks anyway. Good to know you had our backs!

Here's to Possibilities

2009-04-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

Like old times. A real impressive set up today. Not too huge, not too strong but just a good combination of elements. So let's get started.

All the garbage in the atmosphere seems to be moving east. Very impressive "winter" jet now strongest across the upper midwest is being replaced by a split flow with an upper trough out to the southwest. Yesterday's messy analysis was replaced by a very easy to analyze set-up today. Most impressive winds (concerning today's weather) are still in the four corners region but sufficient mid/upper flow should be present across the Panhandle of TX and Wrn OK. Expected 500 mb flow of 35-45 kts with slightly backed sfc flow should set deep layer shears values in the 40-45 kt range sufficient for supercells.

CAPE value will be very unstable with SBCAPE values approaching 3000 J/kg as deep albeit in the mid 60's-dew points, makes it way into most of the southern plains. DRT sounding showed a great "Its about time" moisture profile.

Most impressive was the EML in place over the plains with 700-500mb Delta-T's above 20 deg C with 23 at DDC and TOP. This will set the stage for rapid development of storms as soon as CINH is overcome. This should be in the 22-23Z time frame if the progs hold out truth.

The cold front has slipped south, especially the WRN edge of it and connects with a dry line in the TX PH this morning. ERN portions keep KS in mosit and warm air. Initiation will probably occur in many area along the front in SRN KS and NRN OK. This may be overlooked by the plethora of other chasers (bring back the early 90's) who will be heading to Canadian TX. The triple point is just the obvious play and seeing as we seek the best, we will head there also.

We are headed toward Enid OK and then target west. Would think we will make the TX PH but who knows for sure.I think it is possible to stay in OK but would love NE TX pH north of the Canadian River.Just don't know if the front will return north early enough. Nonetheless, The area should be quite active tonight with the threat for strong tornadoes at or after dark with the onset of the low-level nocturnal jet. Impressive hodograph shape and size should allow for isolated storms to contain a significant tornado threat. In any event, should be a lot of lightning and hial (oy) with very dry air aloft.

All in all, a big severe weather day in the southern plains. It is what we chase for.

Day 1 in review/Day 2 look ahead

2009-04-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

Well, we realized that Saturday looked to good to fool around with stupid storms in IA/NE so after being slightly hesitant, we decided to leave the possible storms for the day and head down to Wichita, KS. We will get a good night's sleep and have time to analyze tomorrow morning before leaving.

I sure do like the look of tomorrow in many ways. To add to other's discussions, todays WRF was too fast in pushing the front southward. GFS had a better handle on it. Tomorrow looks the same. WRF had been too aggressive in pushing the front through while the GFS backs it more toward the KS border. What I liked about today was the front did not have too tight a thermal gradient, especially in the western part. Temperature were able to stay fairly warm even with north winds. Tomorrow should be better with strong pressure rises only being observed across IA tonight. Better dew points south of the front are the result of favorable trajectories across the GoM and Atlantic. It may not be the really rich moisture with Flow from the southern Carribean, but it does bring air with long residence times from the water into TX. Already, there are 70's along the coast.

Would think of targeting the Woodward-Canadian-Perryton-Beaver quadrangle for tomorrow, with an eye further south should the WRF be more on target. I beleive the GFS is not tight enough along boundaries with thermodynamic parameters and stays too capped for that reason.

Will analyze tomorrow morning and make the call then. BTW Sunday looks awesome too...as does many other days this week.

Paul

Here goes the 20th year...

2009-04-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

We left this morning at around 9AM. Today is not looking so good. But since we are here to chase we are still going to have a look-see. Looks like we will head to DSM and then south a bit along I-35. I want to go to Jess n Jim's which looks like a better choice than the storms. And we need to get to the TX panhandle tomorrow, which looks good.

It looks like the atmosphere is trying to shake off the scars of all the slow-moving closed lows this spring. Still a weird mix of good flow and mini circulations on the maps this AM. However, the return of moisture has begun in earnest. I still think tomorrow looks like the better day. The front (with really cold air in southern Canada...boo Canucks!:-) is pushing south pretty fast. The best winds are going to end up north of that frontal boundary.So although there will be some good CAPEs I am not sure if shear is going to be really good.

Nonetheless, storms can play right on that boundary and ingest good helicity so we cant write off today completely.

Tomorrow, the front stalls across NW OK and intersects a dry line southward into TX. Latest guidance progs a 500 mb wind max into that region and aslo develops convection before 00Z. So although the cap is strong, sufficient convergence ought to eliminate that cap through the PM tomorrow. Preliminary look at Sunday looks pretty good also. The whole week actually has promise. So we continue. Yeah spring!

The Start of 2009 Chasing

2009-04-20T22:06:00.000-07:00

This year starts our 20th year of storm chasing. Think about that. We have been organizing trips and chasing the plains of the US for 20 years! I have probably traveled well over 350,000 miles. And with all that chasing, I am as excited as I ever have been.

I am afraid to jinx us next week, but it does look good. Lots of possibilities. I just hope we don't blow it!

I hope you will join me on this chases. I have four of them myself. I will try to post everyday or so. Unless I am too busy chasing. Let's hope so.

Alberta is Beautiful!

2008-07-13T21:57:00.001-07:00

All I can say is that Alberta is phenomenal in weird and less than
marginal situations! Great shear from 3-6 KM and about 1000 CAPE or a
little more...72/54 with 500mb temps of -16C. And what you get is
great. We just need to go here when it is not underneath a strong
ridge. Other than that, anything can happen.

Got up really early (6:46 local) to do the day's plan. Got the car set up,
sent up a radiosonde (fun!) and then transected in the
foothills/mountains S of Nordegg. Found 8deg C dew point drops in 10
meters!!!! Amazing.

Anyway, we came out of the mountains and chased a few cells as they moved
into lower ground. Found some Canola fields for remarkable views.

See weather.cod.edu/~sirvatka/weatherweb/july13_2008 for pics. Last two
are from where we are staying. There is a supernumerary rainbow.

Cool

T-T-T-T-That's All Folks

2008-06-21T14:43:00.000-07:00

I wish that some of you could have analyzed the data yesterday morning. We could not find a hint of a low. In fact pressures were in a high with values over 1015mb. No flow at either 850 or 700 mb with an actually weak anticyclone. But a jet at 250 across CO/KS hinted at thunderstorms that might be severe. Since we are here to chase there was no way we could pass it up.

Amazing things that the atmosphere can do. I think the reason storms worked better was that they were not strongly forced. There was not a lot of cell interaction and cold pool generation that we saw the last few days with the strong OFB's left behind. So these storms had the ability to develop a nice strong mid-level circulation.

We had no target so in all fairness much was luck. But some "better" moisture was left behind in SW KS. Storms seemed to be pretty big windbags in CO. As we were just north of Johnson City KS the tornado-warned storm (OH COME ON!!!!) came into view. Very high-based to say the least. And it too was outflow-dominant. But a storm formed a little to its southeast in some better dew points (upper 50's). Ths storm put out outflow that created a big dust plume that in essence killed its predecessor. This storm however started to get its act together. We headed to get south and east of it and were soon treated to a pretty good storm. The low-levels were pretty lame, but the mid-level exhibited a large circular structure displaced to the south of the rain core by some distance. Radar confirmed this quite well.

As we moved south we heard reports of 2.75" hail. This correlated with a very large BWER with the southern end of the mid-level reflectivity circle over our heads. The 250mb winds were more westerly than days before or I fear we might have found more large hail! We headed south and another storm formed to its southwest. The lack of gasoline and time precluded us staying with it any more.

Overall, a good chase. We are headed home now with no tornadoes but many supercells. And stories. And a slightly dented vehicle.

Deja Vu

2008-06-20T09:41:00.000-07:00

We chased the monster AMA storm last night. A strong OFB from an ongoing (stupid) MCS across Kansas surged southwestward and kicked off a number of storms across the eastern PH of TX. The anvil of these storms were so soft I felt like sleeping on it. So from the get go we knew it was elevated. Originally, we had headed south west but the cu's were completely pancacus. It was soon after that the storm exhibited some good rotation and there was a notch in the OFB on radar. I had supposed that the storm *could* have become tied close to the OFB so we headed to see it. It was clear that the OFB would surge very far with some 20-25 degree temperature deficits.

It had a pretty scary shelf cloud and it had a great turquoise appearance. Given our track record this week with large hail and damaging winds, we decided to stay south of the storm.The outflow was more than ten miles from the storm itself. Even the shelf cloud was displaced north of the surface flow cold air by a few miles. We headed south and east to see another tor warned storm but as we got close, the stratus deck indicating elevated lift was many miles south of the storm. Couple that with the 35kt northeasterly wind at an observing site 10 miles from the storm, well you get the picture.

I continue to be amazed at the amount of tornado warnings. There was one report of a tornado with a third storm further southeast...so I could understand that tornado warning (although I do not believe the report.) Maybe a gustnado, but who knows for sure. Unless we have visual evidence. The other storms were so obviously undercut.

Now I know Markowski maintains that a storm could still be considered "surface-based" as long as there is still *some* SBCAPE. But I would have a hard time thinking that the air is buoyant enough for a tornado to form. We are not talking a few degrees of negative temperature perturbations.

Anyway, we headed toward Lubbock for a nice Cagle Steak dinner. Spectacular lightning for several hours and interesting cloud towers made for a nice weather night. No complaints there. Today, we go to Colorado because we are suckers for punishment. I love chasing in the middle of a synoptic high.You people who like to save money and only chase when there is a good set-up really ought to learn to chase when things are really lame. At least there is no chaser convergence. Although, I could use the company. :-)

Success and Failure

2008-06-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

Wow. AN incredible day! And scary too. This is just a short summary. I will try to add photos later. Intercepted three supercells in OK and TX. The first was LPish and we left it as a tornado warned storm was just a few miles to its east. Still a nice look to it.

We got on the storm south of 40 near Lone Wolf OK. In the Washita Mountains, the storm looked scary. It was tough to get ahead of it but managed to on RT 283. Matt was saying there was a big visual vault. I couldn't see it until we turned south. The storm was one of my top ten supercells I have ever witnessed and clearly it had the most CG lightning I had seen. I have a number of daytime lightning photos. Continuous lightning and very stacatto and scary positive bolts.

We followed it past Snyder where it lost its strength and lined out a bit. It had some low-level attempts at circulation but never appeared to want to tornado.

Then to our southwest was the next monster supercell. We headed for Vernon TX where we tried to get south of it on 70. WE were slowed by near zero visibilities in the inflow dust. A very strong appearance visually. Our level three data didn't seem to show very much until we lost it. I am not sure why it looked so garbled. Either way, we headed south of town...we were about three minutes short of a south turn when the storm cored us. Large and very solid hail dented the van and knocked out one side window. Sizes were mostly golfballs but a few tennis balls. Kelley, my student, was cut and bled some with the glass that shattered into the van. Another student was subsequently hit with another hailstone in the open window. We ended up taking her to Quanah Hospital where she was treated and released with a few minor abrasions and a hematoma on the nose. We need to get the van window replaced. It was scary. SPC..storm log take note. Winds were also estimated to be over 60 mph.

Three minutes earlier and we would have made it. I feel bad for getting us there and wish we had been able to turn south quicker. The radar we had showed that we were very close to the south side of the echo core. But not far enough given the strong upper northerly winds. Must have been a beast of a storm.

see http://weather.cod.edu/~sirvatka/weatherweb/june_16_2008/

Paul

Texas Panhandle Again

2008-06-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

Obvious situations given, there is a subtle shortwave riding over the ridge across the SW near the nrn border of AZ. Stout cap observed at AMA will be breached withwith hot and high LCL conditions like last several days. Better moisture shows up further east...will see if pooling occurs near weak sfc low over panhandles. I would think that the areas in CO will not be very good with winds taking time to become more easterly rather than northeast. The exception is near the mountain circulations along I-25....but no reason to think that will be great storms there.

We will target eastern OK panhandle/NE TX PH and find some localized convergence later. Not a lot of driving to do today so I am glad for that.with hot and high LCL conditions like last several days. Better moisture shows up further east...will see if pooling occurs near weak sfc low over panhandles. I would think that the areas in CO will not be very good with winds taking time to become more easterly rather than northeast. The exception is near the mountain circulations along I-25....but no reason to think that will be great storms there.

I still like being here!

Stop the Driving Madness

2008-06-15T22:33:00.000-07:00

What a frustrating day. I am getting tired of driving and driving. We left OKC at 10AM heading north to ICT. Obviously, we were concerned about the ongoing showers across KS/OK. As it turned out that ruined everything. Pretty hilarious PDS watch/mdt risk in KS. Not a whole lot went on there. And the models were no help. We thought maybe NW OK looked ok so we headed south again. Hung around near I-35 because a nice looking tor warned storm appeared in northern KS along the remnant OFB. Shoot...could this be the start of good storms? South of the warm front the dew points dropped ten degrees...further south, even less. As it turned out, the storm died a horrific death and nothing good really went on in KS. We headed west to see what cu's formed on another boundary.

In Camp Houston, we saw towers to the north near our possible original target. We watched for a while but decided to go after the tor-warned storm in the TX/PH. By time we got there, it died. Had a lot of lightning and very strong winds. But still nothing too good for 1900+ miles in the last three days.

Tomorrow, hopefully close to Guymon where we are now.

Stop the Madness!

2008-06-15T09:09:00.000-07:00

Today is quite simple...lots of CAPE adequate shear and a big forcing front. Ongoing convection is setting up all sorts of boundaries. So here is our play...get really lucky somewhere in Kansas. All you have to do is be at the exact right spot at the right time and then maybe you will see something that you can fool everyone into calling it a tornado. Add 24 kts of rotation, get a tornado warning issued, call CNN who can report on the record number of tornadoes and you got yourself one heckuva a trip!

Gosh, really, we are heading to ICT and trying to figure out if the storms go away in Kansas...or they keep rumbling east. I really have no idea what to do with anything today. A crap shoot at best. Maybe the surface obs will hint at something later. Not a lot of confidence that the RUC will nail things. But, hey we can hope can't we.

Chase 4...gotta get better than this.

2008-06-13T17:02:00.000-07:00

We were planning on chasing today. Until a watch went up at 11:30AM and turned into a
crappy line within two minutes. So we went to Kansas City and to Jess'n'Jim's.
Traffic in St Louis, an accident on I-57 and slow gas in the middle of Mo
is making this a very long day. We should be at the restaurant at 9pm. We
will chase in SW KS tomorrow...not in agreement with SPC with only the
panhandle. So I am thinking more like Dodge and points south as storms
move south into OK...looks like we might be there for a few days. Tough
week to find anything...but at least we won't be in Iowa.

Iowa Tornadoes

2008-06-04T21:01:00.000-07:00

Dave Mayhew, Tyler Allison, John Volmer and I had an itching to chase. So we did. Tomorrow was going to be the big day but we might as well try to make the most out of today. We could make Nebraska in time for storms. I was not impressed with the forecast winds but there was a warm front that had been active and the storms that would fire near it today should travel along it. So we headed out after John had a meeting at the DuPage EOC.

I figured we could make Des Moines by 4 PM and Omaha by 5:30. But instead, a storm forming along the river of the IA/NE border grabbed my attention. We headed south on 59 and aimed at that storm. Within about 15 minutes of our arrival, the storm was tor'd with a spotter report just on the NE side of the river. We got it about 15 minutes later and watched a fairly disorganized storm. It had a well defined clear slot but we were unable to figure which updraft might produce the tornado. There were a few regions of ascent apparent. We stayed with the storm as it moved east when I saw a brief spin up beneath cloud base. Tornado one near Malverne.
We stayed with it a little while and as the hook on GRLevel3 got better, so did the storm. Tyler saw it first and it was on the ground about 5 minutes.

After it lifted, we kept with the storm and again saw it cycle up a bit. We watched it near the town of Emerson.
We followed the storm further east but although the inflow increased, the storm looked outflow dominant. Radar showed large scale rotation which is what it looked like to us. We left it.

A few minutes afterward we heard a report of a tornado right where we had left. I am doubtful of that report although the wind in the RFD could have been strong. Oh well...lots of rain and things that were tough to spot. We saw a few good ones tonight and more might be on the way tomorrow.

Paul

The END

2008-05-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

Frustrating and tiring way to end a chase. We left Pratt around 4 after an OFB hit the town from the convection to the east. Towers going up in Kiowa County. Took some nice back roads and watched two towers for a while. Very few road options and when one finally got its act together we were a little late getting in front of it near Greensburg. We were going to head east on 54 but the prospects of monster hail told me to go back south before going east. Reports of windshield losses confirmed that choice. Unfortunately, it cost a lot of time in that part of Kansas. We eventually caught the storm as it was going into Pratt. Must have missed Rich Thompson's tornado by two miles through the rain. We drove through the RFD as we headed east on 54. We were at the place where the other tornado reports came from and cannot verify anything. Just nothing appeared. It did look like there *may* have been some lowering just to our north. We worked to get in front of it before Turon but it was clearly throwing out cold air and we gave up on it because we needed gas in Kingman and then started heading home.

We have had some good successes this week but were incredibly unlucky. When we had great storms it would produce a good tornado (Bison gustnado yesterday was far from the storms updraft, BTW) We showed up a few minutes late after trying hard for 90 minutes. Oy! I guess we could call wrapping rain curtains a tornado, but the RFD does that a lot...so I will say that we didn't see a tornado.

Todays storms blew up too fast all over the place. For the amount of mid-level lapse rates, convection didnt seem to explode much. Even this storm had problems staying independent as new updrafts kept feeding it from the south rather than become one continuous updraft.

Oh well...one more trip in 18 days.

Paul and Matt

Another Day - Highest Hopes Yet

2008-05-25T06:51:00.001-07:00

Well, after not going south when we should have and watching a bust unfold in southern NE, we are looking for redemption tomorrow while staying in Omaha.

I am not buying the solution for tomorrow that Iowa will have the best potential. Low-level winds veers quite a bit with the overall cyclone along the US/Canada border. This is similar to today where westerly momentum overwhelmed the whole cyclone. (With the exception of south toward to OK) I fear the same thing tomorrow across IA and perhaps NE. I am not sure about MN.WI where flow will cross the warm front. To be honest, I will not chase western WI.

However, northern Kansas (west to Oakley-ish if you believe the WRF or more toward Hays with the GFS) looks ready to be lit up. And perhaps the most scary tornadoes yet. A strong influx of moisture with very deep moisture still in place over OK should allow a rapid increase of deeper moisture into northern Kansas tomorrow. Ahead of the next big trough out west (another good day Monday looks to be in the offing) pressures should fall in CO and the winds and dryline should respond in kind. Strong southerly 850 wind should be underneath good southwesterly flow. I like the convergence along the stalled out front. The WRF has consistently hinted at a vort max with sufficient UVV's to prime the atmosphere. As opposed to todays horrible overforecast of CAPE, tomorrow's values of 2-3K look promising, just not sure how tight it will tuck up against the front/dryline.

Forecast hodographs are downright scary at 3Z as greater than 50 kt winds in the llnj materialize. Take a look at the forecast soundings at CNK.

Either way, I believe we will have to cruise further west than we had anticipated. Until we analyze, I am not sure where...somewhere N-Central KS.

Paul

A Good Start

2008-05-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

A good day yesterday for sure. Nothing photogenic but we saw between 4 or 5 tornadoes
Very exciting at times and we all had a good time. I will post more when we have time but right now we are chasing a lot. Several days more of good chase potential. Today is very impressive.

We are headed toward DDC currently and will favor south toward the bigger CAPE and decent shear (but better storm motions). Am concerned about the extensive cool air north and the water soaked roads in the same area that got hit yesterday. 80% of the roads we were on yesterday were dirt. Much north of I-70 will be brutal to be on today if they are not paved.

We also like the high CAPE as per other posts. Current p-falls are not as impressive as yesterday at this time and would favor a little more time before the show begins. I am sure that capping will not be an issue today and would suspect storms will fire all the way down to the Red River as opposed to yesterday's I-40 cut-off. Mid-level lapse rates are a little less than yesterday with cooler 700mb temps invading the region. Storms would spin quickly today north but I am a little concerned about the effect of the cool air. Unless recovery occurs, storms may become big rain bombs quickly.

NE would be interesting if you dont mind cool temps. Very cold 500mb temps (-17) will keep storms going. Model forecasts show rapid destabilization and I am unsure of how much. However, dynamically speaking, this area is impressive. If CAPES > 1000 J/kg are realized, there will be spinners there.

Water vapor imagery hints at some UVVs spreading toward the TX panhandle now and should approach SW KS by 20-21 Z. The one model parameter I found interesting was a more SSWly 850 wind in sw KS giving decent 0-1 SRH and a better chance for storms to move more east. SR surface flow will be pretty decent there.

BTW A supercell hit our hotel last night around 5 AM. A close lightning strike was followed by a crashing thunder which woke me and was then followed by a 15 minute fire drill at the hotel. Everyone looked scruffy in their pj's!

What We Have Waited For

2008-05-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

Today was fun even though not a great chase. Started out by touring the CHILL-CSU radar (thanks to Eric Nelson) and that was very cool. Will have pictures for my classes in the future. Afterward headed to Cheyenne WY to await storms that came off the mountains or formed in better air to the east. We waited while storms formed in NE CO. I was glad for the forecasting we did in saying that all of CO would be good and that the TX/OK panhandle would have a chance but remain capped.

Stormed were big windbags!! We struggled in the wind for several hours with east winds gusting over 40mph for a long time. Some good lightning but not good for picture taking. We killed several hundred tumbleweeds! For those who know what I mean I am sure you are laughing in understanding.

Tomorrow looks like a big tornado day. I am sure there will be at least a 15% hatched tornado area on the day one. Significant shear and supercells will be abundant from Kansas to OK with the area we will probably target near the warm front dry line intersection and then stair step down the dry line. Strongly backed flow in the warm sector should allow for may storms with a severe threat. We just hope we do not make mistakes and run into bad luck.

But spring is finally here. And should stay put for the next several days. I am looking forward to the chase now!

Paul

And now the chase begins

2008-05-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

We are in Colorado Springs today and this should be the last day of only marginal thunderstorm activity. We will be heading to the Garden of the Gods for sight-seeing...maybe a good Mexican place for lunch. If there are thunderstorms they should be in the favored terrain of the Palmer Divide or *maybe* even the Denver Cyclone region. We are watching more closely tomorrow.

AS flow starts to improve, thunderstorms are likely in the area indicated by the slight risk on Day 2 from SPC. This area will almost certainly see storms but the stroms will have mid-level flow from the south or even SSE and that will make chasing a little more difficult. I do not like some of the shear profiles with those storms, especially if they form in roadless regions. ON the other hand, shear profiles look very good down the dryline in SE CO, even OK and TX PH. This area will be strongly capped but also in closer proximity to better moisture that should be making its way north tomorrow. I have a feeling about SE CO tomorrow but we will wait and see how things pan out. We will stay somewhere near or just north of Denver to put ourselves in decent position.

A New Experience in Weather

2008-05-19T06:48:00.000-07:00

For the years we have been chasing we have often talked about bad patterns and death ridges. We have seen eastern troughs shut down the Gulf and bring cooler temperatures to the plains. I thought we had seen it all but quite frankly, this takes the cake!

I remember some cut-off lows in the Southwest slowly make its way to the east and we have waited eagerly for that flow to make it over the mountains. Going into New Mexico and chasing the western fringes of the Caprock. But what do you do now?

All I can say is that the solutions to this situation from a model perspective tell me how far we have to go to understand meteorological forecasting. I have NO IDEA how the funky omega-type block gets the patterns it does (especially on the op ECMWF solution) and then as the GFS points out go to the little ribbon of a mid-level jet before flow decreases so much. At least the one thing we DO KNOW is it won't look like it is progged to look.

So for the week...because we are out here...Palmer Divide tomorrow to see some convection perhaps...Wednesday, NE panhandle (small area but looks nice...) and then for the next few days, we hope that some shear gets juxtaposed over some CAPE *somewhere* over the high plains. It is what it is...let's find the needle!

Paul

Trying Times

2008-05-18T21:48:00.000-07:00

We went to Jess n' Jim's tonight. That was good. Tomorrow we head to Colorado Springs and we will watch a ball game at the Rockies Game. We are not messing with the stuff in MO tomorrow. I am just not impressed enough to squander time there. For Tuesday, we will be hoping for some convection off the Palmer Divide. Not high expectations...just convection.

Then all eyes will turn to the dang closed low in the SW. What an annoying pattern. Weather sucks this year and it doesn't look to be getting better. We are still hopeful of a few good storms if we can get moisture underneath better flow aloft. Not looking at a large area, but then again, a storm or two is all we need. So look for small areas of concern both Wednesday and Thursday unless some things change for the better.

So we will stay hopeful and not expect outbreaks of severe. Once again, 2008 is too weird.

Paul

The Start of Trip 2

2008-05-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

Funny, but here goes the roller coaster. Terrible-GREAT-Horrible. I know this feeling all too well. But let's look at some positives.

1. By Wednesday the Gulf of Mexico should be wide open. Moisture will head north and stay around for quite some time. I think we can pretty much rely on a good stream of moisture throughout the central US.

2. There is lower pressure out west and higher pressure somewhat east. Low-level winds should be moderately southerly without a strong crashing cold front. After all we have seen this year, this ain't bad.

3. Given the surface winds backing, shear should be pretty decent for rotating storms.

4. It is May and things are quiet now. How often have there been 10 days of no severe in the US in mid May? Climatology (FWIW) is on our side.

Negatives:

1. Model solutions are constantly changing. So what else is new. We are still at 4-7 days out for most of the excitement. How often do good patterns turn sour and bad set-ups improve? The only thing I know is that good patterns staying good throughout several days is a rare event in my book.

2. Locations of storms may not be the best for the southern plains hopefuls. I want them across SRN NE to TX as much as the next person, but if one is able to expand one's territory, there are still several good plays in the upcoming week (potentially). The further north, the weaker the cap. Dakotas and MN look like they could light up a bit. And trust me, this area is DUE (of course I am Cubs fan and have been DUE for a heckuva long time.) Nonetheless, if one can be flexible in where they are looking, there should still be good storms somewhere!

3. Details are always uncertain and gas prices are high!

So here is to following tea leaves...I would suggest starting in Kearney and hoping good storms form within 500 miles! I will talk to you all next week when the moisture is back.

Paul

Earle in Review

2008-05-08T06:29:00.000-07:00

For a review see
http://weather.cod.edu/~sirvatka/Earle/May%202%202008.pdf

And for more pictures and video see this directory http://weather.cod.edu/~sirvatka/Earle/

Finally!

2008-05-02T20:23:00.000-07:00

So after a horrible day, we set out at 9AM to go into eastern AR. Crap...a tornado watch is already in effect. 9 in the morning. How can we deal with this. So difficult to deal with ongoing, we dont need something that is already severe.

Well at least it was just west of Little Rock. Although we were 4 hours short of Little Rock...if we didnt have bad traffic.

Kent and Jim did a great job of driving...quickly...and before we knew it we were in Little Rock. We had a superfast gas stop and lunch in the van (10 minutes) and were on the road again. We had to get to eastern AR to get our of the hills. Nice tornado-warned storms were just to our east. Unfortunately they were moving at 45 mph to the north east. How do you chase those?

Well we got through the line and decided to intercept a storm to our southwest. It was flat, but there were so many trees. We could barely see anything at all. How frustrating.

Now there were many showers and storms to its southeast. But as the storm continued, clearer conditions ensued. So we stayed with it. I must say that the storm never looked like it had really tight rotation. At least not on radar.

I told my partner Mike and said "How 'bout a nice straw....anything small."

As we saw the storm, we said "That is where the tornado should be" 20 seconds later, we saw the tornado. It was distant and low contrast as we moved in closer. I called 911 and reported the storm southwest of Earle, AR. We continued traveling northward and were noting power flashes. The tornado had a large cone appearance. It looked violent. I will be interested to see what the survey says. We will see it tomorrow as we plan on looking at the damage.

The storm headed right toward Earle. Power flashes and debris was lofted. The tornado looked not unlike the May 3, Moore OK tornado. As it entered town, we heard a very loud roar. Loudest one I ever heard. We think the tornado hit just north of the main section of town,

We were afraid to go into Earle as there was reduced video possibilities. Tons of wall cloud rotation continued.Once the tornado cleared the road we were on we loaded the van and continued. We had to cut through town and saw some apparent RFD damage. We headed on a road that continued to the north and east and ran into two police whose car had apparently flipped over. They were badly shaken but fine. A handicapped man had his home destroyed and we are not sure of his condition. We continued following the storm and saw it for much longer time. It finally roped out and lifted.

As we were watching the storm, we got out of the van to photograph. Laura Heiden received a severe shock from an induced charge from a very nearby (about 100 yards) lightning strike. She was shaken but fine. Other students said they could smell a burning.

Very scary for sure.

The tornado was on the ground for at least 30 minutes. No reason to believe it was more than one tornado. We watched it the whole time.

Wow. Great day. Headed into TN and got in the hook of a tornado warned storm. We punched it though....too hard. It died as we got there. Ended up having great steaks at Abes in Dyersburg, TN.

Overall...this day saved our chase!

Bust Day May 1

2008-05-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

It is only fair that I would have to publish this blog on a bust day. Granted, it is a day late, but for all who were sad I didn't post enough, well tough. I worked my butt off all day and the last thing I need to do is type up a post of how we screwed up.

I work 16 hour days and cannot spend more time than I have to write a review.

I wish some of you would know the feeling of leading 16 people on a trip to see storms and realize that you screwed up. Then I got back at the hotel in Joplin at 1 AM and was pretty frickin tired.

Blogging is not what i had in mind...sleep is what I needed.

Especially when I had to get up at 9 to chase again.

So we blew it. Initiation was the problem. We knew that cap eradication was not the problem. Mesoanalysis had 0 CIN for sb and ml values. But still, nothing was erupting. Just no convergence. Parcel theory only goes so far in explaining things.

We said Still water...early in the day. We did analysis on the road and though...Stillwater. We we IN Stillwater. Agh! But there was nothing starting. I let everyone else who told me there would be no tornadoes...no storms...convince me that daylight storms were impossible. Except in KS. I didnt think so but was so afraid, I left our forecast area. Storms started to develop in KS and I could get there. So we went. Saw a crappy little line. It looked really ugly and we knew it had no possibility. Matt called and told us we needed to go back to OK where we had just been.

Crap!

Right where we were.

But we went and made it there after sunset. We were within a few miles of this tornadic supercell. We came over a hill and it died. Completely and within a few minutes. We missed it.

Went to Joplin and were depressed. At least there was a hope for tomorrow.

And now we anticipate...

2008-04-29T22:26:00.001-07:00

We are in Forth Worth tonight. Same place as last night. Today we went to the Fort Worth Stockyards and a Texas Rangers Baseball game. Not what I mind doing but not what I wanted to do. I want to chase.

This spring has been outrageous in terms of its weirdness. Dry air beyond belief, not just at the surface but through the lower half of the atmosphere. Despite strong southerly winds today across Texas, we still only have dew points in the thirties. Mid 50's are close by the coast however and we still have 40 hours of recovery time. Gives you some idea on how deep the intrusion of dryness reached into the Gulf of Mexico. In January it would be strong. Near May it is ridiculous.

But we hope to make that all go away this Thursday with a major outbreak of tornadic supercells. At least, that is what the models are calling for. Here is how it plays out:

The closed low ejects into the southern plains and at the base of that trough a 50+ knot jet pushes into the increasingly warm and moist air mass. Model forecasts are calling for mid 60 dew points to make it toward the OK/KS border. Even if this is a little overdone, it is still pretty healthy.This results in CAPE's progged well over 3000 J/kg.

The positives: Shear is out of control. There is no doubt that storms will quickly become severe and supercellular. A cold front through IA/MO/KS will intersect a dry line through central OK into TX approximately along I-35. The triple point should establish somewhere in NC OK. This is the default no-brainer place to start looking. Storms should fire down the dry line. Given strong capping, good forcing is needed but should allow for discreet supercells, each capable of producing tornadoes, and some significant. 0-1 helicities exceed 150 J/kg and 0-3 values exceed 400 J/kg!

The negatives: Moisture is on its way back and it needs to be there to create a great environment. NAM overforecasts the dews by some amount and may be over zealous with the actual values. Lower dew points mean more difficult to over come the capping inversion. Although the models do not generate precip, there are adequate indications that convective forcing should take place. Also, low-level winds are progged to back with the development of a secondary low over northwest OK. The strength of this feature in actuality will determine how good the environment becomes. Models also indicate some cirrus overcast which will limit visibility and perhaps lower the heating. These details are yet to become apparent.

This will be May 1 and it is in an area that is due for severe again. I feel it will happen. I just hope we are at the right storm at the right time and acting safely!

On Friday, despite problems with convection that may be ongoing, there is a strong signal that IL will be in for a pretty intense severe weather episode. After that, we will be close to home and will probably be home a day early.

Paul

Still Waiting

2008-04-28T23:26:00.000-07:00

Wow,

So little moisture. Some sounding look more like January than late April. Snow in Chicago. Weird weather continues. I have not seen anything like this weather since I have been chasing. Extremely low wavelenghts have precluded aggressive return flow from the Gulf of Mexico and another big wave is set to attack. Wednesday would be outstanding if there were any vapor in the air. 700mb dew points are as low as I have ever seen in spring across most of the southern CONUS.

So we are now in Arlington TX. Up from San Antonio. We are going to hang around the Fort Worth Stockyards tomorrow and catch a Rangers game tomorrow night. Then off to OKC on Wednesday. I doubt we will chase Wednesday. Unless remarkable moisture return commences. But it won't.

Thursday, however, is still the big day and I hope we do it right. We hope the atmosphere does it right too. Friday...not sure. Midwest looks under the gun but it may be messy and early with a lot of ongoing convection.

Saturday....doubtful. Although there is some chance across parts of Texas. If the dprog/dt improves, it might be worth watching.

If not, we come home early.

Sigh...what a weird spring.

Trip 1 Day 2 - Headin' to Texas

2008-04-26T05:34:00.000-07:00

After a fairly unimpressive day yesterday, we slept in Springfield MO. Slow going in western IL toward STL but that is the way it is. Today, a good situation is unfolding in TX with the biggest problem moisture. The NAM seems to forecast a rapid increase and all the models are showing a strong convective signature.

Around the base of the main upper trough another strong impulse is going to make its way around the turn. As it does so, good wind fields will provide a good environment for supercells with storms as they develop. Moisture should become more plentiful so the tornado threat will improve toward sunset. We are hoping that storms will have a favorable trajectory along the returning warm front to ingest more vorticity before the secondary and main killing cold front overtakes all. We are hoping for a good lightning show overnight.

Our target will be toward ABI area or points a little further north. Will adjust after morning analysis. Might take in a Rangers game tomorrow PM before heading to San Antonio in the evening. Monday will be a down day before we head to Lubbock for Cagles Tuesday evening to set up for what may be a busy next few days!

Starting Out

2008-04-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

Chasing from the start. Not the best set-up but not too bad. We are heading down I-80 and thinking about western IL. I will try to post more later but there are some good things and some bad things around. At least we should see storms today. Maybe severe.

But it is later in the week that gives me the most hope. Starting Wednesday in the southern Plains. While it snows in the north we will be somewhat warmer!

Chasing 2008

2008-04-23T20:04:00.001-07:00

Well, time to start a blog for this years chases. I wish this spring had been a little more active. I am hoping for big things next week. Here are my thoughts tonight.

Right now, it looks as though we will leave the gates running. Given early week possibilities being slim, we need to take advantage of things while we have storms. As of now, this looks like the best scenario I can give you:

Friday...leave by 8AM and head toward southern IL/MO bootheel region. I am not sure how things will be in terms of tornadoes, but there should be a severe risk and a chance to get some big storms as a cold front comes through. (There is an off-chance we might actually chase around here a little earlier...) I would hope to stay in Little Rock overnight.

Now the cold front is a real problem. That is bringing cold air southward and dry air. How dry the air gets will matter because a second upper-level disturbance which will swing toward the southern plains with a surface low progged to develop in the OK Panhandle. This will slow the southward push and allow for some instability to make its way toward that low. Dynamically things might be interesting but how much moisture we can get back will be key. I am not sure how good it will be...high based storms might be worth a picture or two. However, overnight, here might be a nice MCS that forms and will give us a good lightning show. We will watch that
because after that, things will shut down for a few days. Cold air will plow into the Gulf of Mexico. We can hope that it is quick to recover because the flow toward Tuesday starts to get much better. I would suggest heading toward Dallas or San Antonio or do something fun Sunday and
Monday. The Texas Rangers have an afternoon game on Sunday. We can get 5 dollar tickets.

Then hope...for moisture return quickly.

But the good news...that at least by Thursday there should be a couple of good days for chasing. I mean...i am looking at the prospects of at least two good days of excitement, if not three. We can also hope for something interesting on Wednesday which means we could have a very good trip.

At least that is how it looks to me right now.

The End of Trip 5

2007-07-22T07:12:00.000-07:00

Well, it is over. What a horrible weather trip. I will have more to say concerning the weather of the last week when I get home. For now, just know that from a storm chaser's perspective it was very dissapointing. Nothing came together at all. No storms were ever good viewing storms, if they fromed during the day at all which most of the time, they didn't.

Thursday the storms were east of the shear. Friday it was capped and nothing formed till way after dark. Saturday, the cap persisted and although it was close, no storms ever fromed. Look at the 00Z sounding out of Bismarck. Great shear, lots of CAPE but low level CIN that was too much to overcome.

Nat to say that the trip was all bad. I thought the people were great. We didnt drive too much. We will have put on less than 5000 miles, probably more like 4750, which for going to west of Edmonton is not bad at all. And we did see the Rockies. It was beautiful.

I would have posted pictures but I really didn't take any. I mean I have some people pics and pics of the terrain, but no storms. I will post those on our web site later.

All in all, while not the worst weather of a chase, certainly, it ranks among the lowest.

To end on a positive note, there were good moments of analysis and I am very proud of the group and they way they did their morning analysis.

That is chasing....you gamble and this year, the atmosphere wasn't even dealing.

Day 7/8

2007-07-20T15:04:00.000-07:00

Did I say I was optimistic?

what a crappy pattern. the worstof my fears had been realized this week. Stupid large eastern Trojgh just kept brinign in more and more dry air. yesterday was as frustrating as it gets. Flow finally becomes good but the surface features pusheast ahead of it. Lots of storms but nothing good at all. All of them near SK border which wasnot under the flow.

It seemes that the wave moved in bodily rather than having a real baroclinic shortwave. Saw some good lightning but not good for photos.

Or at least not when we were there.

Today is hot and capped. No wave to start things off although a little better in surface features.

There is some hope for tomorrow, just not much.

Did i say i was pessimistic?

Actually...tomorrow could be the only day with storms then we go home. d prog/dt is looking better. That sounded optimistic didnt it?

Day 5/6

2007-07-17T23:41:00.000-07:00

Well it is almost 12:30 Alberta time. Today was pretty lame. Drove to Rocky Mountain House and had lunch and saw some pretty areas and played with a turkey and saw a couple of weird animal including a mix of a zebra and a pony.

If I made a bad call it was hoping that storms would make it to the Drayton Valley area. storms that formed stayed tucked in around the mountains and didn't come out to the more plain-like areas. It was tough because it felt like storms were close and at the same time, just too far in the middle of roadless areas. So after a softball game in Entwistle (8-8 tie:-) we headed back to Red Deer. Stayed thre last night and will probably stay there again tomorrow night. Nice and relatively affordable Holiday Inn Express. Had dinner at Moxies and while there, Jim Booth reported some storms coming close to us. As it turned out storms finally came off the mountains at dark. We drove a few miles west of town and watched a good shelf cloud. Strong winds came through with a lot of blowing dust. Back at the hotel, we got some pea-sized hail. And now we just listen to the rain and thunder enjoying the storms in the high plains.

Tomorrow looks a little better with at least as much instability, but better low-level flow. Will there be residual boundaries? Not sure. Mid-level flow is still pretty pathetic but a few better storms might be possible. We will probably go to Banff and Lake Louise tomorrow.

Thursday looks interesting as the upper trough finally moves into Alberta with 50kt plus winds forecast to be from the south. Low-level flow is a little too southerly but there should be adequate shear for a few supercells. Friday looks text book in the mid and upper levels...we just need to have low-level winds remain backed (as they could in the valley) and good enough convergence to initiate storms. Sustained storms whould easily become supercellular with a good chance for tornadoes.

still pretty in Canada and still optimistic!

Trip 5 Day 4/5

2007-07-17T08:11:00.000-07:00

Can I tell you two things that I have figured out? Canada is big and ridges stink!

Yesterday, we left Moose Jaw, SK at 8:10 AM (CDT) which is really early. we stopped for data at Medicine Hat and got lunch there as well. Then we drove until we got north of Calgary near the towns of Caroline, Olds and others. Were there storms? Yes. Saw a bog wall cloud over the mountains. We thought things would move off and be good. but they didnt. Everytime a storm formed and moved off it would die a horrific death. As we saw in the 00Z sounding near Edmonton, there was a subsident near surface layer that basically capped everything badly. No CAPE. Just air that convected on the mountains and then death. Have I told you I hate ridges?

We came to Red Deer and just had fun. I wish I could say that today looked good but I would be lying. winds are worse and the omega block ridge just persists. Thursday looks like flow actually enters AB and we hope that is a good day. Friday everything moves out in a big way but we are not sure how the surface will truly respond.

Did I tell you I hate ridges?

Trip 5 Day 3

2007-07-15T06:10:00.000-07:00

What a silly day yesterday. we drove from Carrington to Minot where we had lunch. We had given up on the idea of heading *really* far north (which was good) and so tried to find a place to stay. There are no hotels in southern SK. If anyone wants to make money, put some hotels in this region. Same in South Dakota. We finally stayed at a hotel in, you guessed it, Minot. It was ok beside the A/C not really working. Good little restaurant called Ebenezer's in downtown Minot. Had fun at least. Played go-carts which was fun. And we didnt just drive around.

Have I told you I hate big ridges. That ridge jsut won't go away. The only real hope of breaking it down doesnt happen until Friday. So we try to find little waves in NW flow which aint easy. There is a little surface low across west central SK that is tracking southeast. Hopefully, we can get some surface based convection near that low. Now to find that proverbial needle.

Sigh. Got to get the flow over the Rockies.

Paul

Trip 5 Day 2

2007-07-14T07:04:00.000-07:00

Well, we saw a storm yesterday. Pretty storm in some ways although not great structure. High-based and elevated, it had some good lightning and our view was terrific. Nice double rainbow (only an R0) and we ended up in Carrington. All in all, an easy drive day (except for traffic NW of MSP) and a good food day. Great little diner (Moe's) in Osseo, WI, and Space Alein's Cafe in Fargo. Played a little darts in Carrington at the Chieftan Bar and Grill.

We had thought about heading north toward Lloydminster SK but the low-end possibility after 12 hours of hard driving just seemed to be more than we should worry about. we will be looking at SW MB and SE SK and maybe even ND tomorrow and AB sometime after that. So we are analysing and waiting for the 12Z WRF to come out and then figure out where in Canada we will head today. Maybe Brandon.

Paul

BTW...yesterday in southern MB, dews started in the low 50's. With NW winds (meaning no Gulf moisture) dews in some places went into the 70's.

Trip 5 Leaves

2007-07-13T06:08:00.000-07:00

Friday morning 7:30. Three vehicles left COD...a 12-passenger van and two full-sized SUV's filled with 19 people and a lot of luggage. There is no way we could do 18 people in 3 SUV's. No room. Can't wait for new vans.

We are hopeful about this week even if the first couple of days are not that exciting. Been a real big ridge over the central Prairies and residual NW flow furth east. Shear is good but annoying with surface northerly winds and very dry air. Ironically, there is a slight risk over ND/MN today...2% tornado prob. Wouldn't it be hilarious if we saw something today? We are headed to Fargo and will be there early enough if storms are in the area. Very funny. We will see!

More later.

Severe Weather Forecasting

2007-06-28T07:24:00.001-07:00

I have been forecasting the onset of severe weather events for a long time. Of all the things I have learned, there is one truth I hold to most closely. Forecasting for severe weather is done on Day 1.

The use of models to pinpoint the best severe is almost useless. All I use the models for is to get a feel for the overall synoptic pattern. To interrogate the model output to a deeper degree is to play a game of futility. I am much happier looking at 500mb winds, 850 theta-e and winds, CAPE and CIN to get a quick feel for stuff.It becomes apparent when there will be a significant severe weather pattern. It also becomes apparent when there will not be a large outbreak but a chance for a few good storms. Shear, moisutre, lift, instability really is sufficient for forecasts beyond the day one period.

However, once it gets to Day 1, then I analyze the data. Given enough experience, it is amazing what you can learn from a mesoanalysis. I do not need model guidance to know where the threat is most likely.

Do I use models anyway? Of course. Hey, I am a meteorologist. Of course I look at models. If I am excited I look at everything and all models. Give me more output.

But do I need models? I would love to have nothing but analysis - colored pencils, maps and images. I would bet I could beat a model 85% of the time. And believe it or not, that makes me feel good. Who doesn't want to beat a computer.

Lightning

2007-06-27T21:18:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like a storm in the Great Plains in the evening. Such awesome power. It is terrific to be there and watch lightning near a great storm. But there is something to say about a picture of lightning too. Well, you know the old saying, take a picture it lasts longer. The bright flash of a lightning bolt. So quick and short-lived. Only the camera can let you remember the details. The camera and the image burned in your retina for at least a minute afterward!

Storm Chase Vehicles

2007-06-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

Well, after spending more than a year trying to make our Sprinter Vans work for our Thunderstorm Lab classes, we have given up. Their reliability, or really lack thereof, will prevent us from even trying to fix them. Unbelievable! So now we hunt down a new solution for transporting 18 people on five trips per year. We think it will be the old reliable Ford E-250's. We sure couldn't do worse.

We leave for another trip in two weeks. Being vanless for this trip, we are going to have to rent some vehicles. This time we are renting two SUV's and a 12 person van. Not ideal, but it should get us someplace. And since we had the Sprinters, this might be the first time we can count on getting there.

Paul

Welcome to My Weather World

2007-06-27T18:08:00.000-07:00

I have decided to put a blog online for my thoughts meteorological and personal. I love to write about weather and I hope this can stimulate some good discussions. I am glad we are still in storm season as I have not had enough storms yet this year!