I'm not terribly impressed with the tornado potential across Kansas today, but it does appear adequate for a few tornadoes if we can get discrete cells off the dryline at a reasonable time. I didn't hardly look at the setup farther south since I won't chase down there, but it did look noticeably better. I didn't pay much attention to the northern target either since I don't want to drive that far for a marginal setup when I have comparable tornado potential close to home. So I don't necessarily think Kansas is the best spot today, I just narrowed my forecast down to that area.
I'm just going to copy and paste from my blog...
Difficult forecast for today over a very large area. I think SPC might be a tad high with the tornado potential for today, but I haven’t looked very closely at the Arkansas/Louisiana area where the tornado threat should be maximized, so they may be on target with that portion of the outlook area. I don’t think we’ll get a whole lot of tornadoes up this way today though. I still have a lot of forecasting to do, but those are my initial feelings.
I think the area from eastern Oklahoma into Arkansas definitely looks the best, but that isn’t option for chasing today. The terrain down there is terrible and the road networks are even worse. It would be extremely difficult to keep up with a storm in certain areas down there and even if you did trees and hills obscuring your view are a major problem in that country. You’ll chase that area about one time before you write it off. I’ve never chased southern Arkansas. I’ve heard the terrain is pretty good, but the road networks aren’t that great. Nothing can compare to the square mile grids over the central plains. It’s like they designed the roads for storm chasing lol.
I’m starting to ramble so I better get back on track. A north to south dryline currently over central Kansas and Oklahoma will mix eastward through the day and be in eastern Kansas by 00Z. With good insolation across all of the warm sector SBCAPE in excess of 2000J/kg should be widespread ahead of the dryline this afternoon. Across the Kansas portion of the outlook area which is the only area I have really looked at, deep layer shear around 50kts and shear vectors somewhat normal to the boundary should create an environment favorable for discrete supercells.
My biggest concern today by far is convective evolution. The WRF high resolution simulated radar did an excellent job IMO with yesterdays convection. I usually put a lot of weight in what that’s showing and that is no different today. It shows several discrete supercells coming off the dryline across Kansas, with southern Kansas being the southern extent of the daylight storms off the dryline. That’s fine with me if it verifies because I really don’t want to drive a long ways again today.
The paramaters across Kanas aren’t that great for tornadoes, but are only marginally supportive of tornadic storms.
I think the moderate risk area SPC highlighted has the best shot for tornadoes, but I don’t want to chase down there so it’s not an option. I didn’t look at the warm front target farther north into Nebraska, so the setup there may be better than the Kansas play, but I’m not going to drive that far for a marginal tornado threat when there is something comparable close to home, so eastern Kansas will be my target today. Right now I like the area straight east of Wichita later this afternoon. I’d like to get on a storm firing near highway 400, which runs east west out of Wichita. If a storm can come off the dryline a little farther south, like in the OK/KS border area, then I’d probably drop down to that instead. Basically I think the best area for tornadoes in Kansas is probably going to be across the southern portion of the state where hodographs are slightly more favorable and 850mb winds could possibly be a tad stronger. LCL heights across Kansas should be okay for a lower end tornado threat this afternoon and if discrete storms can in fact form later this afternoon then I think there will be a decent tornado threat with the stronger storms, especially over the southern portion of the state. The hodograph for Parsons wasn’t terribly impressive, but it did have decent curvature in the lowest 2km (before going undirectional in the upper half) and 0-1km SRH around 150m2/s2, which both make me think that some of the discrete storms today have a good chance of getting it done. This looks like weaker end tornado potential, but tornado potential none the less.
Again today we will be streaming video while we’re out chasing. If you want to watch go to this page and click on the Chaser Radar page. A new map and a list of all the active chasers will pop up. Simply double click on the chasers name who you want to watch and a new window with their streaming video will pop up. I will update the forecast routinely today. Here is the link to the streaming video
http://www.kwch.com/Global/category.asp?C=78802
