Big Severe Outbreak Friday?

Severe weather is starting to ramp up Today and will steadily increase through this coming Friday. As an active northwest flow sets up aloft with very warm and humid weather tries to fight northward. This Friday these really collide in the Ohio Valley with severe weather including tornadoes. So if you live in and around the Ohio Valley expect the severe weather to continue and peak on Friday. I'll have more on this in the coming days but wanted to give a heads to people that not beware of. When I say severe outbreak I'm talking about more than 300 reports of severe weather. This set up on Friday has the possibility of producing over two dozens tornadoes. Stay Tuned!

SPC Outlook for Thursday and Friday


*Still working on Pictures from chase 2009 I'll have them up this weekend.

End of Chase 2009

Nothing really exciting to report unfortunately as yesterdays storm were pretty lame. They kept becoming outflowed and when they didn't they split. So no meso could really become anchored and get wrapped up to produce a tornado. So observed some blowing dust from radar and observed 80mph winds, possible gustnado and some exploding towers from the backside. I'll have pictures from the chase up in a couple days. Probably some decent shots mixed in but definitely not the shots I was hoping for. Have a great Sunday everyone!

From Colorado Springs- Moderate risk Today!

Well It looks like my afternoon post didn't post so that pisses me off a little. =( Anyways sitting in Colorado Springs currently looking at the beautiful snow capped mountains. Looking to head south within the half hour and race southeast to the Texas Panhandle. Where SPC has upgraded to a moderate risk with 5% tornado risk but 45% hatched for severe hail. They look like slow movers and will mature into HP supercells or mergers. So that sucks but hopefully they'll hold off till around 5 or 6 when we actually get there. First 45 mins of the storms will be the best to watch and max tornado potential. Well I need to get packed up and head south on the highway.

Yesterday was a pretty fun day with three seperate storm intercepts. Got pounded by pea to dime size hail that accumulated up to 3 inches on the roadway. Beautiful structure and a couple nice size wall clouds. However they're kinda higher base and never rotated. Hopefully today will be a good day and that moisture axis rides up the lee side of the Rockies. Later!

Target Location- Far NE New Mexico and Nw Texas Panhandle

Morning From Amarillio

It was a long day 1 of traveling with mostly sunny skies and a capped atmosphere. We headed south from Lawton just before noon. Taking the highway south through Wichita Falls to Seymour to eventually Haskel, Texas. Things were very unstable by then with 5,000 joules of Cape nosing north as a weak low was forming in the panhandle. So we decided to head west from there as our target was around Dickens county. Before towers to our southeast exploded and was later tornado warned across south central Texas. For us as we entered our target area we could see pretty nice towers trying to go up. Well we continued to watched this towers go up and down for the next three hours. As the cap kept things knocked down and we couldn't take advantage of the moderate instability in our area. So day 1 was a bust but I enjoyed every second of it. Its so great to spend this time with my niece and it doesn't help that I just love chasing. Driving across this country is so amazing and a lot of people have no clue how pretty the Texas panhandle can be. Well hopefully Internet issues won't be that big of deal today. Yesterday I had very limited Internet for a good portion of the afternoon. So I was able to update and tweet as much. I'll have another update on our plans are later this morning. For now I might try to catch some more zzzz or starting forecasting. Hmm if anyone knows me I think they'll know the answer to that one....haha Let the forecasting begin! Have a great morning everyone from Amarillo, Texas.

Mini Chase 2009 has started!

Analysis-

Greetings from the highway heading through Wichita Falls on our way southwest. Looking at current surface analysis I'm glad I went with my hunch this morning. As low pressure has set up over the Lubbock area. This has turned winds south/southeast across central and now across north central Texas. As the moisture continues to be pulled northwest toward the Texas panhandle. Instability has soared across the region with dewpoints climbing into lower 60s. Surface based CAPE across the I-20 corridor at Noon were already topping out over 4,500 joules. Skies were mainly sunny with some flat cu starting to develop with the advancing low level moisture.



Target Area-

Plan on heading south to Seymour, Texas then west towards Lubbock. I'm thinking currently the we might not get the first one or two storms that form down along I-20. As I want to play the better backing winds to the northwest, not only at the surface but at the 850 level. These per the models increase towards sunset especially the 850 level. Current 4 county play area is thinking to be Crosby, Dicken, Garza and Kent. Another update later when things start to fire up.

Night before the chase

Greetings Everyone! This will short and sweet as I'm about to head to the airport to pick up becky. As her flight got delayed due to the MCS going through north Texas heading towards where she came from Dallas.

Forecast- Lots of rain this evening with a complex of severe t'storms that has a pretty nice cold pool behind it. Notice though that things have rebounded a little over the Texas panhandle with main short wave. As a new low pressure has deepened over Oklahoma Panhandle. This might be a saving factor for tomorrow as dry air has not come surging in behind the first shortwave. Water vapor does show some energy still left in the southwest flow that will move across tomorrow afternoon. Models have done horrible the last two days with placement of fronts, low pressure and convection. So I think its a crap shoot on tomorrow but think we'll see some supercells from Oklahoma panhandle southeast to near Dallas along a stalled front. We'll see what overnight models and upper air soundings have to say. For now i'll leave you with the current day2 outlook from SPC. I'll have a full pre chase day 1 analysis tomorrow morning.

Quick Update on Chase 2009

Extremely busy trying to get ready for mini chase 2009 and dealing with a couple unexpected issues. The official start will be this Thursday June 11th. However we might make it out for a while tomorrow evening across Southwest Oklahoma. As Becky gets off the plane at 5:55pm here in Lawton. Models continue to have a lot of issues with the southwest flow of the southern stream and split flow across the West of the two jet streams. Within these two bands of strong upper level winds are short waves or enhanced lift(energy). Each one of these helps creates lift and t'storms to form. It also helps determine where areas of low pressure form and strength of them. Right now the models have big difference in strength and timing of these short waves. So right now I'm not really looking too far down the road towards Friday or Saturday. Like I mentioned earlier Wednesday does look decent for severe weather across the Texoma area. So a brief evening chase could happen but we'll for sure get out on Thursday. As Thursday has even bigger question marks in where the instability sets up. Here is the latest outlook from the SPC for Wednesday and Thursday. I'll have more on tomorrow's possible chase by early afternoon so make sure you check back.

Chase 2009 is almost here

Mini Chase 2009 is almost here as myself and my niece will be taking a quick four day journey. Across the Plains looking the magical and mysterious supercell that produces a tornado. She arrives Wednesday evening 6:30ish and looking at the latest forecast could do a spontaneous warm up chase around Sw Oklahoma. Then after I get off work Thursday morning around 10ish we'll head out. Then chase Thursday through Saturday before heading back to OKC for her to board a plane back to Indiana.

Looking at the long range models and ensembles the weather pattern isn't going to be perfect. However a hell of a lot better then its been over the past 4 weeks for severe weather. A similar situation t0 what we're dealing with this weekend will take place late next week into the weekend. So the hot spot will be from NE Colorado southeastward to Northern Oklahoma more then likely. So Thursday chase will be across Kansas due to traveling time then probably up in western Nebraska and NE Colorado. Which wouldn't be too bad because I would love to take a little trip to Golden, Colorado for some nice Coors(Right Chris =) ) That might be wishful thinking as that would be a long drive but you never know. Right now I would give it the chance of seeing nice supercells and good storm structure(something Becky has never seen) a 7 out of 10. Now the possibility of seeing a tornadic storm based on synoptic set up I would say 3 out of 10. So hopefully the weather pattern gets a little more amplified and the shortwave comes out at a little better time. I'll have more on the trip later and make sure you add me to your Twitter account or just keep checking on the web page for updates. I will be posting pictures and twitty while out in the field. This time chasing I'll have time and not having to deal with doing work stuff.