Without wishing to trash the thread with extensive comparisons, could I just ask for opinions on whether this situation is anything like April 6th-8th last year please? I only ask as the deep southerly flow progged over eastern KS reminded me of Mike H's chase/tornado at Hanover, KS on the 6th.
Kind of a good point here. I'd say 500mb flow during the April 6 Salina to Hanover cyclic tornadic storm was from about 210 degrees. I personally was surprised that storm was able to remain discrete for as long as it did given the intense dynamics and rather meridional nature of the mid-level winds. The 2-8km shear vector did have some crossover with the dryline that day, but not a lot. I think strong isallobaric adjustments were creating some extremely favorable 0-1km SRH in the corridor where that storm was, which was never really sampled directly (though the TOP RAOB was kind of close)... this may have been a factor in its persistence.
Discrete tornadic supercells can and do occur with near-unidirectional deep southerly flow. 09/21/06 last year is a good example, but these storms were immediately in advance of a compact closed low with a well-timed dry slot wrapping in ahead of it.
Back to Saturday... I've been seeing a much more elongated vort max in the progs, with mid-level flow actually forecast to back with time on the "northern" end of things as the wave goes negative tilt. In that regard I believe it's a little different from April 6... and the progs spell more of a squall line/line segments to me.
I think we're all aware convective mode is hard to anticipate. Pattern recognition and drawing comparisions are still a good thing.
Edit: I actually like the looks of the 12Z GFS better, esp for cold core activity. The vort max is awfully elongated still, but the sfc and mid-level lows are in far closer proximity and it doesn't occlude as quickly. The prog looks very, very similar to the 11/27/05 event; like, nearly a mirror image. *Disclaimer: Surprise! it's still too early to tell.* lol.
