March 30, 2016 Chase Report

Well, not much to report on other than I went for it yesterday and pretty much busted. I woke up in Norman, OK and sat around until noon or so. The first (or second) round of convection in central Oklahoma had me worried about buoyancy issues later in the day near my original target in se KS/ne OK. I opted to go south (distance to home may have swayed this) and target north TX where there was plenty of juice piling up but shear was lacking quite a bit. Chased around DFW area and had some 1" hail and near 70mph winds near Burleson, TX. Here's an interesting shot showing the outflow from storms in se OK that helped fuel the next round of storms northeast of OKC that went on to produce the Tulsa area tornadoes.

View post on imgur.com

Another example of knowing the issues of the south play but still targeting that region. I knew that better 850 flow would be further north and east enhancing SRH.

I only stopped a couple of times and snapped some phone pics.

Possible first chase of 2016

I'm eyeing tomorrow as my first chase of the season.

Right now I like two different target areas but there is still quite a bit of uncertainty regarding the setup that I'll likely just decided Wednesday morning. I like the shear profiles in eastern Kansas more so than the southern target but I question the surface temperatures in that region. Update tomorrow...if I go.

Upcoming Storm chances for the end of March

Hopefully my 2016 chase season will begin here shortly. Right now I'm watching two possible setups, Easter Sunday 27th and Wednesday 30th. Not much agreement among the models but the NAMs depiction of Sunday has my attention with the compact shortwave slower and further northwest than most global models. Will continue to watch...

Back Again

I'm going to try and keep up with this blog again during the 2016 chase season. In the meantime, here's a video...

Nebraska June 16, 2014 from Sam Dienst on Vimeo.