06/01/09 FCST: CO/KS/OK/TX/NE/IA/MO/IL

[Chris Carter]

Yea, and there is still convection firing along the front from the CO/NE state line to Omaha and further into IA, the main concern is cloud cover again, hopefully we can shake the clouds from the overnight convection across the target zones. My feeling is we will see a repeat as far as storm development goes, storms will start firing in western nebraska and continure to develop east as the cloud cover moves east. Dew points have been holding in the mid 50's, with overnight rain and evaporation in the morning i expect dews in the 60's across the state of NE, IA, KS and MO. My target area is Grand Island.

 

[Brian Stertz]

SW/SC Iowa & NW Missouri target

Starting pt. for chase will be from Clarinda IA...and based on 4km WRF...things may get pretty wild between here and Lamoni and possibly southward into extreme northern MO after about 5pm later today. Best backed sfc winds on forecast...plus the slightly veered LL jet should keep
this area with best SR flow. Tornadoes do appear probable within first 1-2 hrs. past initiation with most discrete supercells. Then the transition to a more widespread convective merger ...back-building or training line of storms/supercells will firm up from S. Iowa....N. Missouri....SC/SE Nebraska....and NC/NE Kansas. An item of interest will be the location of a possible boundary from the early morning convection across S. Iowa and extreme N.Missouri. LL shear and pooled moisture could make things very interesting on whichever boundary ends up as the primary one.

 

[Jason McKittrick]

This forecast is based on 00Z model runs and bufkit soundings. After looking over the data I have decided on a chase strategy. Yesterday was pathetic, I encountered chase convergence on May 31st, the peak of the season, on a marginally severe pulse storm.

I have decided that shear in this case is more important than CAPE. Second, terrain is an significant consideration as well. Based mainly on these two factors I have decided that my target for today will be Washington, KS. It appears that there will be sufficient lift to ignite storms along the entire boundary beginning at around 4PM near Beloit, KS and expanding eastward across northern Missouri with time. NAM Bufkit soundings indicate that shear will likely remain weak east of the Missouri river until late evening, have therefor opted for a slightly more western play, where stronger midlevel flow will be producing a more favorably sheared environment across extreme south central Nebarsaka and north central Kansas. It appears this area will recieve a greater amount of midday insulation as well which should offset the slightly lower dewpoints at the expense of lower LCL's. Will be looking for an area of locally maximized surface wind and pooled dewpoints along the front over north central Kansas and hope it does its thing before reaching the Missouri river where finding a crossing could be problematic.

Good luck to all, be safe and may today bring us something a little more interesting to focus our attention on. I suspect we are all suffering from some atypical mid season SDS.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Target for today (SW region only): Multiple options, although no BIG FAT "go to" area ATM. Afternoon to late afternoon surface features will define target for today in SW sector. In reality, NE Colorado appears best bet for brief tornado production today. Interesting note, and under-forecasted in my opinion, is all of western TX/NE Texas Panhandle areas and SW KS where pressure falls may back winds and create a retreating or stationary dryline at max heating as SW trough moves into area. 14z AMA radar clarly shows dryline advancing and stalling east of AMA. Think early cloud cover may help to limit/focus initial convection.

Good luck to all.

W.

 

[Joel Wright]

Was thinking about heading out to southwest/south-central Iowa until I seen the weak circulation over western Iowa. Looks like a remnant MCV or something. Anyway this feature is heading east-northeast and should be over eastern Iowa by later this afternoon. If we can clear out eastern Iowa some more, things could get interesting in this area I think. Already SBCAPE nearing 2,000j/kg in this area.

For now will hold tight, but may be heading into eastern Iowa shortly.

 

[Josh Richardson]

Im liking what looks like a lone supercell breaking out on the 4km WRF in SW IA, might have about an hour or so before things start congealing together. Going to head shortly for Creston IA.

 

[Craig McPeck]

From last night i am still liking the target of Lincoln Nebraska. Latest RUC has some good shear in that area but kind of displaced from the highest instability but not far from it. RUC also has a good amount of 2000+ instability over the Interstate Cooridor through Omaha today. Much like yesterdays route, looking like I would do the same route as yesterday if i were going. If i would go further west, maybe also start at York once again.

 

[Jesse Risley]

On the eastern target, I like NE MO and SE IA right now. There has been some surface heating in this area, as evident on visible satellite and surface observations. If something can get generated in this region and feed off of an OFB, it would probably have some potential early on before this turns into a possible linear event later this evening.

I would say Iowa Hwy. 2 between Ft. Madison and Centerville, IA would be an ideal target ATTM. It offers good north-south options into central Iowa and Northern Missouri if anything happens to initiate and remain discrete in this environment, but the atmosphere is still capped of course.

 

[Chad Cowan]

Definitely not an easy forecast today. Right now I'm about 50/50 between taking I-35 N out of KC to Bethany, MO and taking I-70 W to about Salina and heading north from there to Concordia, KS. The stronger H5 flow is over the eastern target but it looks like it's going to be displaced north of the initiating boundary. Around 25kts over most of the warm sector should be enough for some brief supercell structures and maybe a tornado or two given the good directional shear in the western target and decent speed shear in the eastern target. Right now I'm leaning towards the north-central KS target mainly due to the H850 charts showing strengthening and backing into the evening as opposed to the nrn MO target which veers and weakens with time. But then again, the MO target has the better moisture/instability. It's going to be one of those days where convection fires everywhere along this W-E boundary and it's just a matter of finding the best LL shear and strongest H7 flow for some updraft venting to slow the inevitable gusting out. I'm hoping for something to fire well south of the boundary and become surface based and mature before it tracks over it's enhanced low-level turning, but I think that's a long shot given the pulse type nature of these storms under weak upper winds.

This one could come down to a coin flip.

EDIT: It was heads (Concordia) but I might go best-of-three. Preliminarily planning on hedging my bets by going north to St. Joseph and delay the east or west decision as long as possible. Surface obs and visible satellite loops will be the only thing I need see this afternoon.

EDIT 2: 15z RUC showing a moisture hole over ne/ncntrl KS, not sure what that's about, it's not exactly meshing with current sfc obs though. I like the 82/65 with 15kts out of the south in Emporia right now. This forecast is a doozy.

 

[Mark Blue]

I like your target of Concordia as I was noticing the surface winds there earlier (backing). I think we will be just slightly north of there in Hebron where the surface winds have backed in response to the vort max coming in from the southwest over the four corners right now. This is definitely a messy forecast and some insolation to the surface would help immensely as the cloud cover from last night is still kind of thick. Since the stalled out front is right over the Nebraska and Kansas border I believe anywhere along there from about Hebron east to Falls City would be a good play, but it's a really hard forecast as the helicity appears to be displaced from the CAPE and moisture today. The general area where KS/NE/MO/IA meet also has my attention as most of the ingredients appear to be in place in that general vicinity, so we will probably not drift too far west today. Watching conditions as they develop will be paramount today.

 

[Adam Penney]

Im not feeling too well today, so what looked to be a chase day today is now a no-go. If I were up to par, I'd definitely be out today since its a max 3-4 hour chase location from home.

Interesting to note that the SPC on the 1630Z outlook has significantly reduced their wording from possible discrete supercells to now just a primarily multi-cell mode for today. Also dropped T-probs down to 2%.

 

[David Draun]

I would assume development of an early show is imminent in northern IL. Per the RUC-mesonanalysis, CAPEs are spiking to 2500 J/kg and the CIN is rapidly eroding. High moisture convergence is also occuring NW of the Quad Cities. Not to mention the substantial clearing over the northern parts of the risk area. BRN values are supportive of supercells, but I would expect to see some marginally-severe multicell thunderstorms breaking out between the IL/WI and the I-88 corridor within the next couple hours. Storms could intensify, move eastward and drift southward; ending up along and south of I-80 by late afternoon. Hail wind and heavy rain look like a good bet.

EDIT: Developing storms moving into moderate-high surface instability of 3000 J/kg. Could an MD be out shortly?

 

[Ryan Pfannkuch]

Still sitting right here at home in Hastings NE as of 130pm, and seeing no real reason to migrate elsewhere for the time being. Latest 18z hourly SPC meso-analysis depicting my immediate area right in the heart of the 2500 j/kg MLCAPE max with slow but steadily eroding MLCIN. still a light NE breeze here, but legitimate SE flow only 1 row of counties to the S/SE. Of course the deep layer shear is anemic, with only about 25 kts of effective shear in south central NE, increasing into the 30-35kt range across southern IA, although that area just can't seem to shake the clouds with the ongoing pesky showers along I-80.

Officially, my current 4-county target area in southern NE is: Adams, Clay, Webster, Nuckolls. However, the RUC has been hinting at some shortwave ridging possibly keeping this area convection free until late evening, and I think there is a reasonable chance that I might be drawn farther west toward Lexington or Holdrege as the next weak mid-level ripple could get the SW quadrant of Nebraska going before the south-central counties

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Still not overly impressed with today's setup, but am sitting in my Ottumwa target of earlier and feel pretty content with my position and the prospects in SE Iowa and possibly NW IL later. Tongue of good moisture/instability feeding in ahead and south of that mcv crossing central Iowa right now. Sitting under a stronger than forecasted 45-50 knot 500 mb jet streak which should be enough for severe thunderstorm development given the progged high instability near 4000 j/kg by 4 PM.

Only concern right now is that I may end up between the two best areas. Models are kind of weird in how they handle things at 0z, so will probably have to carefully monitor real time conditions and actually look out the window once or twice this afternoon. Be nice if this cirrus deck would erode a little faster.