Live Updates, April 30th Tornado Outbreak

UPDATE AS OF 8:20 MOUNTAIN:  A trailer park has reportedly been hit along with multiple missing person reports.  This is information gathered from the Live State Police radio feed.  Here is a radar grab from one of the storms with a tornado currently on the ground:

Check back every 10 minutes for current information on the current tornado outbreak.

UPDATE AS OF 8:35:  The SPC has upgraded  the risk for tornadoes to 95% and the risk of f2+ tornadoes to 70%.  A PDS watch box has been issued until 4 A.M.  PDS stands for "Particularly Dangerous Situation.  The Arkansas State Police have sent all units in the surrounding area to patrol for significant tornado damage.

UPDATE AS OF 8:55:  A State Patrolman has confirmed heavy damage to a town to the SE of Little Rock.  He reported houses blown over, and described the town as having "major problems."  Some of the supercells in Arkansas have congealed into a larger mass which will reduce the tornado threat for those particular storms, but there are still 5-6 strong supercells downstream.   There are still a few tornado warned supercells in Eastern Missouri as well.

UPDATE AS OF 9:00: Fox News is reporting atleast 3 dead, 25 injured in Arkansas.  Again, these are not 100% confirmed.  A local fire dept. received damage but there are no reports of injuries related to this damage.

UPDATE AS OF 9:24:

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs345.ash1/29418_403137809112_62408869112_3783711_5423893_n.jpg

Copy and paste for damage photo (I don't want to deal with copyright issues if there are any).


 This is a picture of the damage done to the local fire department. This just shows the scope of the potential damage across Arkansas.

UPDATE AS OF 10:08:

Conway Co. Arkansas 2 tornadoes confirmed.  6 houses destroyed.  Gov. Beebe has sent the National Guard to White Co.

Primary storm of concern:

Very impressive hook and couplet signatures persistent for about 15-20 minutes now and strengthening.

New development is occurring in the SW corner of the watch box.

High Risk Issued, Live Updates

  A potentially significant severe weather event is unfolding across most of Arkansas and southern Missouri.  The SPC had just issued an MD using very strong wording when suggesting the potential for strong tornadoes.

CONCERNING...TORNADO WATCH 116...
   
   VALID 010026Z - 010230Z
   
   THE SEVERE WEATHER THREAT FOR TORNADO WATCH 116 CONTINUES.
   
   DANGEROUS TORNADO SITUATION UNFOLDING ACROSS AR/SRN MO THIS
   EVENING...AND THE TORNADO THREAT WILL CONTINUE INTO THE OVERNIGHT
   HOURS.
   
   MULTIPLE DISCRETE SUPERCELLS CONTINUE TO INTENSIFY IN A BROKEN BAND
   FROM N OF TXK TO NW OF LIT INTO S CENTRAL MO.  THESE STORMS ARE
   MOVING INTO AN ENVIRONMENT WITH STRONG LOW-LEVEL AND DEEP-LAYER
   SHEAR...AS WELL AS RICH LOW-LEVEL MOISTURE AND MODERATE INSTABILITY
   /PER THE 00Z LZK SOUNDING/.  GIVEN THE OBSERVED STORM STRUCTURES AND
   ENVIRONMENT...A FEW STRONG/LONG-TRACK TORNADOES NOW APPEAR LIKELY. 
   THE CONVECTIVE MODE AND STORM ENVIRONMENT ARE NOT EXPECTED TO CHANGE
   SUBSTANTIALLY INTO THE EARLY OVERNIGHT HOURS...THUS THE SIGNIFICANT
   TORNADO THREAT WILL PERSIST WELL AFTER DARK.

If the threat verifies and there are multiple long track tornadoes, the risk of losing life would be very high.  As of now there are 11 tornado warnings along with atleast 2 probably tornadoes already occuring.  During the day this would be disturbing news, but going into the night time hours it becomes terrifying.  After a slow start to the season many chasers were begging for some more tornado action, but nothing like this and never at night.

UPDATE: There is a reported tornado down in residential areas with a trailer park town already possibly hit.

http://thv2.com/Watch_THV2_Online.aspx   for live feed.

April 21 Report, thoughts on April 28

Did you really think I could leave you?  I've gotten over the worst my anger at chasing and mother nature - don't hate the game hate the player right?

I'll start with the ending:

And now I'll tell the tale.

After hearing a rumble of thunder, I left my house expecting to photograph a typical spring time upslope thunderstorm.  I got this instead:

Yes, I still get overly excited when I see a meso, so when I saw this I was ecstatic.  I stayed and watched the meso start to gain strength then die out, then got hit by some decently sized hail which left me with one small dent on the hood of my car.

That should have been an omen but being my naive self I saw a meso indicator on Baron and decided to try and catch back up with the storm.  At this point the front of the core was just reaching E-470 about 5-10 miles north of the Southlands mall. 

I headed up that way and when I got to the E-470 on ramp, I got a call from my mom saying she was getting pounded by "massive" hail.  Second bad omen.

Then on the turn ramp for I-70, I started getting hit by about nickel sized hail but decided to keep on going.   I didn't know why at the time, but at around this time Baron stopped working.  Third bad omen.  I later found that my radio receptor box had fallen off my dashboard...how could I have missed that?

I really don't want to relive the tragedy quite yet, the wound is still bleeding, so I'll just sum it up quickly.  I got cored for 20+ minutes, broke my windshield wipers, got 150+ hail dents, and missed a meeting for my job.    Yes, there were lots of dents.  A quote from the repair man..."There are dents in side of dents and dents in between those dents."

I think I'm going to write a dramatic short story about that just because it sounds entertaining...that'll be coming this weekend.

Now on to Thursday, April 22.  The day I will never forget and will probably cry myself to sleep over until I'm out of grad school.  As everyone knows, there were some extremely photogenic tornadoes in SE Colorado.  I don't know how many there actually were, but that one storm would have put me over my year long goal.  I can't take the pain of talking about that storm so I'm just going to skip to the pathetic forecasting job done by the local media.

Kathy Sabine said there would be none, nadda, zip severe weather along the immediate front range that day.  All I'm going to say is my forecast was dead on and the pros at 9news were completely off.  A tornado warned storm ended up popping up over the metro area, spitting out golf ball sized hail and multiple funnels. I just think it's amusing how cherry creek school district used their tornado warning drill once the storm had already passed.

That's probably all a jumbled mess and you can blame that on the ACT.  Whoever wrote the science section on that test is trying to keep our nation's youth from going to college.

I'm going to be making a post of my favorite pictures so far this year tomorrow and hopefully some video of the hail, so check back for that.  If you'd like to see my full gallery feel free to check it out on my facebook profile, anybody should be able to see it.

A Confusing Situation

Well, I guess I messed up kinda bad.  I got caught in the hail core of the tornado warned supercell on Wednesday and my brain pretty much shut down.  I forgot that I should probably get out of the hail before my car got destroyed.  I didn't think that small of hail could dent my car like it did, but hey I guess we all learn something new every day.

So here was the situation:  The storm was moving to the NE and its core was right over I-70, so, thinking that I'd be able to get behind it to go around the storm I decided to go East on I-70.  Bad Idea.   I got ahead of the rotation and sat around for a bit with fellow chaser Zach Young (who I had just met).  I then headed to Bennet to try and stay ahead of the rotation, but got cored instead.   What really kills me is if I had driven merely one or two miles to the south I would have been out of the core, but no, I decided to sit and get video.  The thing pretty much stopped moving right over Bennet and pounded me and about 50 other cars for over 15 minutes.  I managed to break my windshield wipers in that time so after that I couldn't really do anything about getting out of the core.

I don't know what I was thinking, or lack thereof, but I think this is supposed to be cluing me in to the fact that maybe I'm not mature enough to chase.  Or I don't know enough about chasing to chase safely.  

My car isn't destroyed by a long shot, but it is covered in over 100 half inch to one inch dents.  That means to repair the damage we have to peel off the top and sides of my car and replace them...we're looking at a lot of money.  Basically, my car is only two weeks old and is already covered in over a hundred dents.  Do I want my car looking like that for the entire time I have it, or do I quit chasing, save a lot of money and wait until the car is older and I'm in college.  Insurance will cover the repair but our rates are going to be raised quite a bit.  I just think I'm way too young to be messing around with this kind of money.  In hindsight, I would have tried harder to convince my parents to get a used car so they weren't so upset over the hail dents.

It just kills me knowing that had I been paying attention I could have saved myself this whole mess.  Oh well, it's here to stay and I have to deal with it.

Another factor is that this is the last semester of school colleges will be looking at and my grades are slowly falling.  I can still salvage my gpa and hopefully get back into honor roll but I don't need that additional stress with getting into college on top of the fact that I'm already on the border.  My stress levels are going to be over the top until I know I'm into college because my entire future is riding on it.

My last post stands as in right now I am thinking I won't be chasing until college, or possibly next year.  Don't get me wrong, I am obsessed with chasing, but I am looking at the long term situation, not just what I want to do now.

Obviously this is a very tough decision but I think I've made the right one.  I will keep my blog open just on the sly chance that I change my mind.

Last Post

I will no longer be chasing until I get out of the house and get to college so I'm closing down the Upslope Chaos blog.  Thanks to anyone who read my blog.

April 21 Chase

I was going to write a report for today's chase but I'm too wiped out to write a somewhat readable report.  I'll make one report for both today and tomorrow's chases probably Friday night.  I'll just post this picture and leave it up to you to decide why my Dad is so upset tonight.  No that isn't snow.

April 22 Forecast

Thursday holds potential to be a fairly large sized severe outbreak if the models hold.  It looks like areas around the Texas Panhandle will hold the best potential for supercells and a few tornadoes, but because I can't make it that far south and the entire chasing community has already over analyzed this set up I will focus on a smaller area in SE Colorado instead.

There is a smaller amount of CAPE in my target area, but still enough to get things going.  With an overly adequate amount of shear and some upper level support to boot I think we can get things going down there.  Also, the hodograph is suggestive or tornado potential:

The dewpoints aren't as high as they could be, forecasted to be around 50-55, but the NAM has been overshooting the dewpoints lately so I'm putting it closer to 45-50, maybe the lower 50s.  This is relatively low for tornadoes but if I think there is even a small chance, I am going.

I'm thinking about somewhere between Lamar to Kit Carson.

If anybody reading my blog has any opinions/suggestions about my forecasts or anything else I say in my blog, I would love to hear them.

April 19 Chase Report

Today was one of those days that will decide future chasing decisions for a long time to come.  After nearly all of my hopes were dashed by this morning's RUC runs, I still decided to head out and try and get an upslope thunderstorm or two.

I started my chase at about 1:15 this afternoon and headed down to Limon where I saw some marginal LP supercell structure but the storm quickly deflated.  Noticing a more promising tower going up down south, I headed down there and ended up getting on what was most likely the storm of the day (I will call it that unless I see some pictures of the storms that went up around Limon in the late afternoon). Unfortunately I was on the east side of the storm so all I got was a rain shaft and a very small side view of the updraft, but what I saw was very impressive.  By the time I found an east-west road, this is what was left:

It seemed to go more LP as it headed south, but right before this there was a decent rain shaft.  At this point it was starting to die out, but still some good structure.

Should have taken more pics of the storm before it hit this stage, but I was too busy trying to find a road.

I then headed back up north to go back home when this storm popped up over Castle Rock:

 So I stopped to get some pictures but when I did it didn't look too great anymore.  Another cell was going up next to it so I stopped to get this one in its early stages instead:

Anvil from southern storm

 New storm

 I started to head home again, but when I turned the corner around Castle Rock, I saw another supercell looking structure.  It was fairly dark so I tried to do some longer exposures but I guess you are supposed to clean your lense before you do that:

This picture has been enhanced so you can see the inflow structure.  I am thinking the one on the right is the old meso and the one on the left is the new, or maybe they are separate storms.  Too bad there wasn't better lighting for this. 

In the end this turned out to be a very successful chase for mid-April in Colorado.

Maybe somebody who was watching GR3/actually chasing the storms up near Limon can tell me what they looked like?  That would be appreciated.

G'night.

April 19 Chasing Forecast

With some finagling and some risky business, I have opened up tomorrow for chasing.  I am some what hesitant with the new model runs because it looks like the shear will be more linear and not so much directional.  This means severe potential, yes, but I was hoping more for some marginal supercellular structure.  Once this gets onto the RUC tomorrow I will make my final decision, but for now I am putting it at a 75% likelihood of chasing.

For some reason it isn't letting me post pictures right now but I am planning on sitting around Clifford, CO and waiting for the storm to come to me.  I am hoping for my storm to form closer to the foothills and build as it gets to me but because of the forecasted Southeasterly storm movement of the storms tomorrow I may have to adjust my target a bit to the south.  Hopefully there will be CAPE values of around 500-1000 and dewpoints in the upper 40s/lower 50s for my target area.

There is a little bit better of a set up further Northeast closer to Wray, CO but I don't want to make a three hour drive for such a marginal set up.

I got to see the storms go up over the Palmer today but all of my pictures were overexposed so I won't bother posting any...hopefully I'll get some better ones tomorrow.

April 19/April 22 Forecast

I don't know if I will be chasing these events.  I have some personal conflict going on with my chasing/life priorities along with some other people influencing my decisions.  The situation I got myself into is cleaning up well so that will probably not be an issue come tomorrow.  I will maybe talk about this more in a week or two.

Tomorrow is looking like a possibly severe day over parts of Eastern Central CO.  I am looking at somewhere between Lamar and Limon, but there is also another area closer to the KS/CO/NE tri-point that looks somewhat interesting.

With some decent cape to get things going and decent shear I believe there will be one or two severe storms tomorrow with a chance for a possible photogenic supercell or two. 

The shear is more favorable on the KS/NE/CO tri-point area so that will be where I would probably be targeting if I go chasing.


April 22 has some pretty good severe potential but I don't think it deserves the 6 day out severe forecast by the SPC. 

Here's a forecast hodo for around the Goodland area:

The shear profiles are favorable for supercells and possibly tornadoes all the way from NW KS to Texas/OK so this will definately to be an event to monitor.  I will not be chasing this event.

As I speak there is a nice little storm going up over the divide:

 

 I'd just like to finish off by thanking anybody who reads my blog for the support.

I'll try and post an update later tonight regarding tomorrow's potential chase.

April 13 Chase Report/Bad News

Yesterday was my best chase to date by far (which isn't saying much).  I scored a small cone funnel/rotating scud, a lot of nickel sized hail, some decent flooding, some short-lived supercellular structure, and an amazing sunset to boot.

To start off with, on the way up to my target area I got pulled over for going 3 over the speed limit which, excuse my opinion, isn't a good excuse to pull somebody over.  I ended up only getting a warning and the State Patrolman was nice, but it still wasted 10-15 minutes of my time.  That put me a little bit behind the initial burst of the line, but ended up probably putting me into a better position than I would have been had I gone after the initial storms.  I saw some isolated storms firing along the CO/NE/KS border and decided to wait around for those.   Apparently God was mad at me for going 3 over so he tossed a rock into my car...I never expected my first dent to come from inflow winds.  After getting away from the intense inflow winds from the developing line, I found myself in front of a very picturesque LP-ish looking storm:

For a moment it looked like its updraft had puckered out but soon enough it found another burst of energy and visibly developed some minor supercellular structure in the form of a bell shaped base.  I eventually let the storm go over me, trying to get some good structure shots on the other side but unfortunately there were too many mid and low level clouds to get a decent shot.  I am bewildered as to how this storm eventually went tornado warned because by the time I left it it looked like a mess:

That might be a developing RFD back there (rear-flank downdraft) but other than that I see no other signs of this storm having tornado potential.

Ditching out on this pathetic looking storm I scrambled south to a storm with an apparent developing meso (radar indicated) but the storm gave out before I could make it.  I was disappointed at the time but had I known what I was about to get treated to, I would have been the exact opposite.

As I tried to catch up to the now tornado warned cell to my north, I somehow managed to find a rather decent patch of rain free base (I'm assuming from the warned storm) in the middle of the HP mess.  Looking to my east, I was surprisingly treated to a moderately sized piece of rotating scud/possible funnel.  I tried to grab out my camcorder to get a shot of it but right as I turned it on the area of interest became shrouded in rain.  However there was still some small-scale rotation on a slightly lowered area of the storm but I didn't stick around for long because the now intensifying line was directly behind me.

I don't know what was going on, but I am leaning towards the line was taking over a smaller line of storms directly in front of it, but all of the sudden I found myself looking a very impressive sight to say the least.  I was surrounded by apparent hail cores and torrential rain but found myself staring up at a very picturesque sight.

  Apparent Outflow Region

I am assuming there were outflow winds from the stronger rear line interacting with the inflow base of the smaller line in front of it but when I looked up in front of me there was a very decent area of rotation right in front of me.  You can see the area of interest at the top of the picture.

And here's a screen grab from the video:

This was definately the highlight of the trip not because it had tornado potential (it didn't), but because it was such a stunning sight.

After this I witnessed some street flooding in Ogallala and after somehow breaking my wi-fi card and getting lost in the middle of nowhere for atleast an hour and a half, I got to observe my best sunset to date.  These photos have not been touched up.

 It started out like this...

And went to this...

And then this...

I've made this way too long so I'll make the bad news short.  I won't be chasing for possibly a month  and I'll just leave it at that.  Hopefully I can get out sooner but it's not looking good.

Luckily I got in a good chase with plenty of pictures before this happened.  I will still update my blog every once in a while so stay tuned.  I'll be back.

Total Miles: 1956

Tornadoes: 0

April 13 Forecast/Chasing Plans

We're finally only a day out from the first possible severe reports in Colorado.  This is what I've been staring at all afternoon:

 There is a line of 50+ dewpoints all along Eastern Colorado with the NAM wanting to push closer to 60 up near the Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska border. 

There is plenty of shear for very large hail, and plenty of wind for some damaging wind gusts along most of this line of high dp's.

Also a very decent amount of low level vorticity (and upper level vorticity) to play around with.  I'd say we could get some imbedded rotating storms in here.

There are two areas I am thinking about playing and my decision will have to come down to the morning model runs.  I am thinking more so about the Kansa/Colorado/Nebraska tri-state area, but maybe starting out a little west of that for some possible rotating more isolated storms earlier in the day.  These thunderstorms will eventually line out into a broken line format according to the local NWS offices and the current models.  I believe we could see one or two tornado reports in this area.  Another area I am looking at is the tail-end charlie, way down near SE Colorado.  I like the chance of this cell being more isolated and with the decent amount of supercell ingredients that will hopefully be in place down there as well, I can see this cell turning possibly into a supercell with tornado potential.  The only thing that has me hesitating on the very isolated tornado potential of this system is the moderate dp's.  If the dewpoints were higher, I'd be more confident about tornadoes.

My main goal with tomorrow's chase is to get in a good early Colorado severe season chase, hopefully score some rotating updrafts, get some 1" + hail, and maybe an isolated supercell...and of course some pictures to go along with it.

The SPC is mostly agreeing with my thoughts thus far so hopefully that will remain the case.

Tuesday Thunderstorms/Potential Weekend Setup

So today, uhm.  It was a good thinking day.  I think I figured out some stuff in my life and that's good, right?  Oh yea, I saw some cumulus clouds too.  That was pretty neat.  Uhhh yea, then I met a nice state trooper, but that's for another time.

Tonight would have been an early to bed, pity myself night except for the fact that Tuesday is coming.  No not next Tuesday...I'm talking about 4/13.  Slap 750+ J KG of juice on top of a front moving through on top of some deep layer shear on top of some good moisture (yea that just happened) and you get a line of thunderstorms on the Colorado Plains.  That's all jolly and yes, I will probably end up chasing this line just for some Colorado fun, but the real jewel here is the possible "Tail End Charlie."  The Pueblo NWS office even mentioned a possible severe weather set-up on Tuesday, I'm assuming from this possible supercell.  Let's hope it follows through.  Specifics/

Murphy's Law has it that now that I bring it up, the GFS will decide to change its mind, but here goes.  There is a possible set-up somewhere in Kansas/OK on Saturday and I'm just going to say it could be big, and it will probably not be there by the time Saturday comes around.  But hey, it will get me through this next week.

Also, there is a slight chance of thunderstorms (not severe) across the Eastern parts of Colorado Wednesday through this weekend so I'll keep an eye on that for any possible lightning opportunities.

The Skunk, the Raccoon, and the Bust

Well it's been an interesting ride here to say the least.  I have been nearly suffocated by skunk...smell...atleast 5 times, had to dodge a family of raccoons, and got to witness some sort of high profile pull over (three cops surrounding one car on the side of the road).  And now I'm sitting here in Colby, KS, realizing that three hour drive will be for not.  The RUC is slapping on some pretty hefty CIN values most likely due to an EML capping inversion sitting over most of the plains right now.  The NAM isn't too much more optimistic with a few spots of CIN values in the 50s with a few areas further south where the cap has completely deteriorated.  The GFS, which I do not trust at all, is wanting to put some precip breaking out around where I am at around 4-5 oclock. 

The local NWS office in Goodland has said that there will be a chance of some non-severe thunderstorms a little east of me, so on a positive note maybe I'll get to see a rainbow...I guess I need a picture of one for my physics class so that might make me cry less hard tonight.

For now I will cheer for the GFS and sit here in my lawn chair in Colby, KS, looking like a run-a-way.  Enjoy the sunny skies and low 70s back in Denver....

April 11 Chase Forecast

I've convinced the parents that I will be fine using Google Maps tomorrow chasing due to the lack of any real significant tornado threat so I will be waking up at around 7 and hopefully heading out around 8 to get to my target area early. 

As of the current model runs I will be targeting SW Kansas where there will possibly be around 1500 CAPE and dewpoints around 55.  There is a large hole in the cap right around the area I am looking at so I'm hoping a storm or two could pop up in that area.

Another area of interest right now is, believe it or not, SE Colorado.  The WRF-NMM and the NAM both want to put a thunderstorm down there.  Whether or not this storm could last longer than 10 minutes is a question without any mentionable upper level winds but hey, it's a colorado thunderstorm.  At that, the WRF-NMM wants to give it a 4 hour lifespan and puts not only one but 2 storms down there.

I won't bother mentioning the North-Central OK target because of the massive amount of CIN down there. 

So the basic plan is: Head to Southwestern Kansas and get there around 1ish, leaving time to adjust from there if needed.  This also puts me directly east of the possible Colorado storm so I can bolt back west if need be.

Finally, I would like to mention how much I hate the Texas set-up for being so far away from Colorado.  And at that I am headed to bed.

Good luck to anyone who is headed out tomorrow.

No Chasing, Thank You XM

I don't understand how it can be hard to find halfway intelligent people to hire when 10% of our nation is out of a job.  XM has managed to find a way to make it difficult so I am without radar data until they can figure out how to read their manual.  So to start out with, I had to talk to two managers to even get my subscription started.  I gave them the package name and they somehow couldn't find it.  So I haven't chased in a month, and now I'm yet again not getting any radar data.  I call them and what do they say?  I haven't payed for it this month, but I definately have a rather large subscription charge on my bill for this month and last month.  So now they have to figure out what to do and I have no Threat Net until then which means no chasing.

My parents are really worried about how safe this whole chasing thing is so as an agreement I said I wouldn't go out without having GPS and radar data with me.  On a scale of annoyed to annoyed I'm pretty annoyed right now.  The first local chases (although not tornado threats or probably not severe threats) are coming up this week and it looks like I'll be sitting them out.

Additionally I was going to escape from life and go chasing tomorrow but that will not be happening either. 

Thunderstorms over the next few days?

I'm really tired and wanting to go to sleep so give me a break on the quality of this.

Basically, I'm looking at an Upslope? storm forming over the Palmer Divide tomorrow afternoon around 3-6 PM.  I'm putting it close to 5ish (yes, I admit because the WRF NMM is putting it at that time).  With limited moisture and almost no instability, it is probably going to be more like a rain shower but there is hope for some early spring thunder.

Then on Sunday the NAM is showing a decent surge of moisture coming in with some marginal instability packed in there around the 45-50 DP areas.  I am very disappointed because although we have two of the three major ingredients for an elevated severe storm (hail/wind threats), there is pretty much no wind to be seen in the upper and mid levels (700-500 mb).   Yes, if a system came through right now it would probably change the DP's/instability values but it still is torture seeing that somewhat decent CAPE and the first sign of gulf moisture but no winds to help out a storm.  Still, the NAM wants to break out a few upslope storms and a storm in southeast CO but I am doubtful.  There may be some severe in SW Kansas but I am not going to chase a set up with no wind...

And on to Monday.  This stabs me in the heart.  The NAM is pushing a small disturbance through CO this day, sparking off a fairly decent amount of convection in Southeastern-ish Colorado but again...no wind.  I take that back, it wants to put 30 kts of 700 mb wind in that area but I doubt it will be that high.  With around 1000+ CAPE down there, a small disturbance (decent vorticity and some insane verital velocity values), and some moderate DP's, I want to go down there just because I feel guilty letting those ingredients go to waste.  Again, the NAM is slapping some decent convection down there but due to my lack of experience and the large area it is covering it could just be wanting to put some rain down there (no T-storms). 

Anyways, I thought I'd complain about the lack of wind for a while.  We are also going into a potential 2 week lapse of any "classic" severe weather patterns.  Knowing the GFS that could mean we're having a tornado outbreak in there but it doesn't look good.

Now to sleep, I'll try and be up by 2 in the afternoon....maybe.

Severe Outbreak Underway

Severe storms have been raging across the Midwest through the East since around 8 this morning and are showing little sign of stopping.  What was once a hopeful tornado outbreak across Southern Ohio/Northern Missouri/parts of Kansas turned into a less potent but still destructive severe weather event.  Here are the reports so far:

Although the most significant severe weather is done with for the day, I expect atleast a dozen more wind/hail reports.  In reality there will probably be more than that seeing how many warnings/watch boxes are still up:

 The small blue dots are the warnings active and the larger blue boxes are the ongoing watches.  Even though there was only a single tornado report throughout this entire event (when it was expected to potentially drop a few significant -EF2 -> EF5- tornadoes), it was the first serious severe outbreak of the year.  After a few months of seeing only very minor outbreaks, it was good to finally see mother nature's steam finally kicking in.

I will probably be online-chasing the event tomorrow as well but I have two papers to write that are due Wednesday so I will probably only have time for one quick post.

Prove Me Wrong Again, Please

And I am wrong...again.  What I thought was a sure cap-bust has now turned into a tornado watch and an explosive line of cells going up in NE Kansas.  A newly developed supercell has gone from a literal open space on the radar to having a well defined hook in a matter of half an hour.  Explosive?  Explosive indeed.  It looks like this potent system is ready to hurl its best at us just at a different time than I had expected (and not in my would-be-target...).  It looks like most chasers had given up on the system and headed different directions, so hopefully some will be able to recover and get back to this amazing system in time.  However, it will be night time chasing with very likely tornadoes so this will be a very dangerous chase if anybody heads over.

Mother Says No

I was wrong, SPC was wrong, everyone was wrong.  I believe this says it all...

Notice the two small clusters of chasers...with no storms.

While this was going on on the other side of the Slight Risk...

  

Tornado Watch/Tornado Report/ Cluster of cells

Hey, maybe we were right for the first half of the day?

 Hail Reports from before 9:00 GMT, Should-Be-Gone Watch Box

Early in the morning, two apparent supercells and numerous severe storms trecked across Kansas and Missouri, but no chasers were there to observe them (as far as I am aware).

The latest RUC models are showing the cap increasing or staying the same after nightfall over most of the "bust" areas...except for one small sliver in far NW Oklahoma.  A Mesoscale Discussion has been released regarding this area, but there still is some doubt as to whether the cap can be broken.  I hope something does pop somewhere just so this extremely potent system doesn't go to waste. 

Or not...

After thinking hard for the last few hours, I have decided that I am not going to chase any of the setups of this coming week.  There will *probably* be a storm or two somewhere along the dryline, but it isn't worth it to drive a 5-7 hour one way drive to possibly see a storm this early in the season.  The only other option would be to wake up very early, miss the first day back after break (given I have to make up 4 tests from missing last Friday), and then have a probably 20 hour day of driving..no thanks.  That's unsafe and there will be closer and better set ups later in the season. 

I am not saying there isn't a reason to chase tomorrow because there are plenty, I just don't feel like it is worth the grade dropping risk at school or the long drive out there.

I don't know what the SPC has been smoking down in Norman, but there should definately be at least a see text for this setup, but we will see.

Good luck to everyone going out, should be a good early April chase.

Storms exploding over Missouri!

A tornado watch has just been issued for Northern Missouri/parts of southern Iowa/Western Illinois.  Supercells are expected to explode over this region for the next several hours and are already starting to do so!  There are two groups of cells at this point but I believe the western most group will turn out to have the highest potential for tornado development. 

In the last 45 minutes these storms have gone from a speck on the radar to nearly raging supercells.  The northern most cell has had a hook and some small to modest rotation for the past while so I would expect a warning for that cell soon.  Hopefully this doesn't become one big mess, but for now it appears they are staying somewhat separated.

Sorry Calculus, you're taking the bench

Monday...Monday oh Monday oh Monday.

The first big chase day of the season is upon us.  My feeling is that Monday is going to be an explosive day over parts of Kansas and Northern Missouri which has led me to the decision that I am skipping the last half of my school day on Monday to get out to central-ish Kansas.  I don't care what NOAA says about the cap from hell, something is going to pop and when it does, it is going to be a monster.  There is enough CIN (convective inhibition) to prevent an over crowding of cells, so the storm of the day is going to be rolling all by itself.  There is some debate whether there is too much CIN to keep anything from happening, but I have confidence that atleast a few supercells will develop around late afternoon when the cap has decently eroded.  The wind profiles are adequate enough to label this storm a tornado producer, so if I manage to get on a supe, then the chances are great that I will see a tornado.

*****CLICK ON PICTURES TO MAKE THEM BIGGER*****

500 mb shear ( look at north-central KS)

CAPE

CIN

  Dewpoints (upper 60's)

Sorry about the small images, I'm too tired to figure out how to crop them.  Where I am looking at is north central KS, which is a 5 hour drive at best but for this event it is 100% worth the drive and getting to miss calculus is always a bonus.  I just thought I'd post my plans for this event so there it is and now I'm off to bed...after an all nighter Wednesday and then only 6 hours of sleep last night I am completely wiped.

One last thing, don't believe NOAA's "See Text" for this event, I don't know what they're looking at but from my perspective there will be at least a few tornadoes in Northern/Southern Kansas on this day (discounting the more favorable chase target in MO).