The SPC already put an enhanced risk for day 3 for the upcoming Dixie setup and the ingredients look to be very favorable for a widespread event as far as model guidance shows.
My experience with the spring green-up during a drought is that the drought might delay it and it will definitely clip it off at the top (i.e., the green-up process will stop before all plants have done it), but it won't completely halt green-up. Point being - seeing green-up starting in mid-March may not correlate much to drought magnitude.This weekend's system has definitely helped improve the drought situation across the southern and central high plains. Better to have a drought in the cool season than in late spring. While chasing in the Texas panhandle this past Friday and Saturday I noticed that the area didn't have the appearance of being in a severe drought. Vegetation was just starting to green up.
There has been a lot of talk about tornado activity being focused east of the plains this year, however that has yet to be the case. Perhaps we continue to see more activity over the preferred regions of the traditional alley moving forward deeper into spring.
I think that says more about the consistency of the early spring Dixie Alley season than about anything else.Non-meteorologically speaking, it's mildly interesting (and somewhat concerning) how our tornado numbers thus far are pretty closely mirroring 2019/2020 seasons. It doesn't mean much of anything in the grand scheme of things, but it will be interesting to see how our late April evolves with a slightly different drought situation and the potential for some additional drought relief over the next 2 weeks.
Definitely, I don't think there's much of anything to be gleaned about the potential of this season from it, just thought it was interesting in passing.I think that says more about the consistency of the early spring Dixie Alley season than about anything else.
Realistically, most of us are hard-focused on chasing the southern Plains through Midwest and into the southern Canadian provinces. Dixie Alley essentially does not overlap with that at all, so what goes on there is pretty unrepresentative of what's going on in the chase-favorable terrain most of us spend our time on.
Aside from whether or not the analog will correlate to anything, if it does in fact mirror 2019 that’s not so bad. 2019 wasn’t a bad season (well, it was for me, but that was my own faultNon-meteorologically speaking, it's mildly interesting (and somewhat concerning) how our tornado numbers thus far are pretty closely mirroring 2019/2020 seasons. It doesn't mean much of anything in the grand scheme of things, but it will be interesting to see how our late April evolves with a slightly different drought situation and the potential for some additional drought relief over the next 2 weeks.
Come, now. It is only the beginning of April - the very beginning of the three peak months of the classical season. A lot can happen, and most of this period is beyond what we can reasonably forecast at this time. April is always a boom-or-bust month. Still a lot of polar air masses hanging around parts of tornado alley to screw with setups.Medium and long range models are not depicting any signs of life for chase-worthy prospects in the Plains anytime soon. La Nina appears to be quickly fading, the ongoing drought appears as though it will get worse, and persistent troughing over the eastern/northeastern U.S. all appear to be negating factors for robust severe weather anytime soon. I know it's only early April, but my hopes for a solid chase season aren't very high going forward. Maybe 2022 will be different. If we end up with two trash years in a row, the desperation of storm chasers in 2022 will be unparalleled.