I'm back and so is the severe weather

Models for the last couple of weeks have been teasing a last gasp of the storm season. With the climatological season quickly coming a end this last gasp better come quickly. As of tonight I really believe that we will see some increase in severe weather over the next 10-14 days over the Plains. As the ensembles, GFS and JAM are all on board in breaking down the Mexico High/Ridge and dumping the trough into the west. The questions will be how much will the jet flatten out over the East and how far east will the trough in the West be? I'm really questioning with the latest indications of the NAO trying to go negative if we can get out of the NW flow. The Western High Plains will be will the NW Flow turn off the real Gulf of Mexico moisture train. Those of you weather geeks know this is a similar situation that happened over the early Spring.

However there is some positive signs if you're hoping for more chasing or severe weather. In the next 6-14 days as the dailies of the SOI have gone strongly Positive. Generally when this happens the trough can anchor itself in the Western US. Unfortunately with the SOI already going neutral or slightly negative this pattern will be short lived. As with the El Nino coming on the theme of the summer will be cool northeast and hot southwest. With the severe weather focused in the Great Lakes and Northeast with the dominant northwest flow.

This week we'll see a little bit of severe weather over the Southern Plains Monday and Tuesday. A weak flow and cold front charging south will limited the severe weather to mainly a large hail and damaging wind threat. Then by next week the trough enters the West coast and the flow should start to flatten out. This will allow the moisture to climb northward and start to interact with stronger flow overtop of it.

So maybe there is some hope for the start of June and lets try to not to dwell on the horrible month of May.

Major Outbreak of Severe Storms Later Today

Major outbreak of severe storms is looking likely from Illinois southwest to Oklahoma. Damaging winds and very large hail look to be the biggest factors. However a couple areas will have an increased tornadic threat towards sunset. One area will be from far western Illinois near St. Louis to Joplin, Missouri. Another one which is very conditional will be From just east of Oklahoma city southwest to Frederick, Oklahoma. Here is the latest outlook from the Storm Prediction Center plus Hail threat then Tornado Threat..... To get the latest information click on the link SPC

Another chase another chase without seeing a tornado

May 1st 2009 chase had promise but in the end the lack upper level winds were its downfall. Chase went down into west north Texas around the city of Seymour. Here are the pictures and captions telling a little about the chase.

May 1st Chase

Round #1 Over with no nader but some good storms

Here are a couple pictures from todays chase. Storms remained fairly high based and never really looked great at the lower layers. Very large hail and some great storm vaults we very evident with each supercell. Round #2 is tomorrow and could be the day of tornadoes. So I'm heading to bed and I'll try to have a full report later this week. Hope you enjoy the pictures....

Heading west towards on I-40

Sunny skies with a puffy cu field overhead but with a capped look. Temperature currently is 83 degrees with a dewpoint of 66. Strong southeast wind 15-25mph continues to pump in the moist air. A tornado watch has been posted until 4z (11pm) as models and current conditions says initiation is within a hour away. Looking at the latest RUC the bulls eye of greatest tornado parameters continues to be just south of I-40 in Washita, Greer, Beckam, and Northern Kiowa counties. This is maximized at sunset between 23z and 2z with llj making 0-1km helicity values scream out strong or violent tornado. Map Below......

Tornado Watch now issued until 11pm for Very large hail up to 3inches in diameter and tornadoes.

Right now nothing on radar but visible satellite starting to show agitated cu to the west. Another update possibly later......

Chase Mode is in progress across Western Oklahoma

Very unstable atmosphere currently across all of Southern Plains as a cold front surges south and a dryline sets up to the west. Looking at the current surface analysis along with visible satellite. Things look like a go for widespread severe weather and a regional tornado outbreak across Western Oklahoma.

The morning models show a very favorable environment for rotating supercells capable of very large hail, damaging winds and strong tornadoes. Storm relative helicity prior to sunset runs at a pretty high rate 300 j/kg especially with over 3000 joules of surface base CAPE. Then what is a little scary is the ramp up to nearly 550 j/kg. This nearing the parameters capable of producing strong long tracked tornadoes with a mature supercell.

Models continue to differ on exact location of cold front surging south. Right now thinking the chase target near Sayre/Elk city looks to be a good starting spot. So plan on heading that direction here in the next hour or so.

I'll have another update later while I'm on the road. Unfortunately this looks like a possible day of if there will be a tornado but how many and if they will hit anything.

Here is the latest SPC Outlook and the second map is the tornado threat with a large 15% area.