Focus on Thursday, May 1st

Looks like a potential outbreak of severe weather if the latest GFS and ECMWF runs are anything close to accurate. Anywhere from eastern Nebraska/western Iowa south to northeast Oklahoma are areas of interest. I won't go into much detail until the NAM gets ahold of things.

Tornado in west TX

Report from Wednesday's chase here:

http://www.capturethestorm.com/42308.htm

First attempt at Lightning

A pic from the house of a storm that went up late yesterday evening. Looking south from Norman...

Threat for Supercells in OK/KS Late this Evening

Looks like at least a decent shot of storms very late today anywhere form Clinton, OK northeast to about Wichita, KS. Marginal shear profiles but high instability will likely exist over much of this region later today. Any storm that is able to form late this evening (if any) will likely exhibit supercell characteristics and contain large hail. I might head to Guthrie or El Reno later today and decide what to do from there.

Thursday 17th

Me and Sean observed a few marginally severe storms in central OK yesterday.

Looks like at least a small chance of a chase in the southern plains sometime during the middle of next week. After that, April might be done with and May is just around the corner...

Southern Plains Storms - Thursday 17th

Fairly nice 500mb trough will cross through the southern plains tomorrow, 17th. Decent gulf moisture is making its way back north today and will continue to advect into tomorrow. Surface low, along ne-sw oriented cold-front, forming in the TX panhandle will move east then northeast through central OK on Thursday. This may help back sfc winds to an east-southeasterly direction ahead of quickly approaching cold front. 850mb winds are generally out of the sw today and much of tomorrow contributing to a warm layer that will prevent thunderstorm develop until later in the afternoon Thursday when the 500mb trough moves east. Depicted by the NAM/WRF, there is some low-level directional shear but mostly unidirectional from 850mb on up. Chase target tomorrow, if I choose to go out, will likely be in the Norman-Chandler-Shawnee area as a starting point.

http://www.wxcaster.com/weather.php3

Update

Thursday 17th setup doesn't look too promising.

Early next week (April 20-23) looks very interesting with a nice western US trough looking to develop in that time frame. Good gulf moisture looks to be in place across the plains as well. Future model runs should help pinpoint what days will be the focus.

Upcoming Pattern

Looks to be fairly slow for the plains for at least the next week. Longwave trough moves east and sets up over eastern coast resulting in northwest flow for the plains and surface highs likely making it all the way into the gulf shutting off moisture for a while. There are some hints of moisture return and western US trough beginning around Thursday April 17th on the GFS and ECMWF.

Wednesday

Heading out the door for what looks to be another chase in north west TX. Will post more later....

Large Tornado captured in NW TX

Brandon McClung, Sean Waugh, Cassie Wingate and I witnessed at least one tornado today. Report coming later on webpage but here are a few video stills...

Monday Chase in Western OK

I'll be out again tomorrow and again in western OK likely. Not going to spend alot of time other than to say it looks good for a couple tornadoes....

Thursday Results / Chase coming Monday likely

We got on a few good storms in north Texas on Thursday and spotted a very brief funnel associated with a ragged, low wall cloud a few miles west of Scotland, TX. Very large hail was reported north of Scotland but we stayed out of it for the most part only running into golfballs.

Looks like another chase is in the works for Monday. Details still need to be cleared out but there is plenty of time for that.

Chase on Thursday April 3rd

I'll keep this short as I'm busy trying to study for two tests today and tomorrow morning. All things still looks good for a decent severe weather event on Thursday evening throughout the Red River Valley. Doesn't look like the perfect setup to me but definitely worth going after.

Monday Results

Got some intense supercell action in south central and southeast OK again on Monday. Up to tennis ball hail on those storms today. We were on a couple of tornado warned cells that just didn't have enough to produce.

Here are a few hail pics from between Davis and Sulphur..