2015-03-19 EVENT: NW TX / SW OK

[Steve Miller TX]

After analyzing weather data this morning, I'm saying home today despite my target area being about 2 hours from home. There just won't be that much CAPE to work. Sure, models show small peaks of 1000j/kg, but about 95% of the warm sector will be 500-850j/kg. That is pretty weak overall. Boundary layer winds are forecast to be on the weak side too given the expected weak instabilities. The "pluses" on today's setup is some noted clearing to the west of the I-35 corridor and a weak warm front in play which should have some decent baroclinicty to it.

However, without stronger low level flow and/or better instabilities, storms will struggle overall. I believe anything worth chasing for me personally will be of a very short duration. I've seen this setup many times before when storms will fire up and become rather robust and then slowly dwindle and then dissipate as they move closer to the I-35 corridor. Part of this is the "source region" for inflow will be from the cloudy regions and thus lower instability almost to the point of being stable. The latest model runs including the HRRR support this.

I'm just too busy and budget conscious to gamble on today's setup. The season is still very young. I'd rather wait for a better setup down the road. Given that I think this season will be an active one for Texas/OK even into mid/late June, I'm not going to have any regrets staying home today. My virtual target today is Jacksboro, TX. Good luck to those venturing out today.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Looking over a few things, my only real concern is the cloudcover/lack of instability issue. Regardless, I 'm still going to get out and see what happens.

TARGET: Archer City, TX

 

[Robert Forry]

I think the gang headed out to chase today is going to be rewarded for their efforts. A lot can happen with a surface low, marginal CAPE (under 1,000 J/kg) and backing winds. Going to remain optimistic and watch. Things are really clearing out near/around Abilene.

 

[Sean Ramsey]

I'm heading down to give it a shot today and target Electra so I can move west easily if need be. Seeing some areas of 1,000 cape and a few spots of 1,500 here and there and dews in the 60's still, with 58-59 showing currently just north of the Red River. If anything it will make a good work out the bugs/rust chase.

 

[James Langford]

We're heading out as well. All points above noted and somewhat concerned, however I like what I am seeing near Seymour. Clearing, temps in the 70s, cu on visible satellite. Time will tell.

 

[James Gustina]

SFC temps/dews are rising pretty rapidly down there and its clearing out pretty nicely almost to the Red River. Alleviating a lot of my concerns early.

 

[Greg Blumberg]

Here's an estimated 17 UTC sounding for Vernon, TX that was generated by modifying the 17 UTC RAP with nearby METAR data. I've plotted an estimated boundary motion as the orange-brown line on the hodograph. If storms initiate along the warm front, it's likely they will become elevated as they move towards the cold side of the boundary (which is NE of the boundary line plotted). The best storms will be the ones that initiate furthest away from the boundary, as they will have the most time to get organized before they become elevated. Discrete storms are certainly possible, as the LCL-EL layer mean wind vector is perpendicular and far relative to the boundary, but the lack of strong capping and strong surface frontogenesis over the past few hours has me wondering if the coverage of the storms that do develop will be much more than first anticipated.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Waiting for a couple of people to jump into my car here in Childress. Plan on checking things out before moving. Going to see if we need to head east or south from here. 61 dews in Wichita Falls right now. 60s along I-10 with southerly winds might allow us to realize the forecasted 60 dews. The stalled boundary is pronounced nicely just south of the Red. I don't want to stray too far away from it.

 

[Michael Gavan]

I think this says it best. CU field smack dab in the right place, under sunshine. Dews well on their way to the low 60s.



Edit: jpeg compression ruined the numbers. that's 56, 58 and 60 crossing the CU

 

[Robert Forry]

The same image I've been looking at this afternoon (with some blue mixed in to indicate ML CAPE) on GRE.

 

[Greg Blumberg]

Correction...I'm posting this here since Stormtrack has changed and I can't find the edit button anymore.

That sounding was for Seymore, TX. Not Vernon, TX. And the surface dew point I modified it to is probably a little too high and the surface temperature too low. Per the West Texas Mesonet, it really ought to be around 74/59 not 68/62. (http://meso-file1.tosm.ttu.edu/sfc_plots/L_nwslub_plot.gif)

 

[Kelton Halbert]

The most recently available HRRR had a nearly straight line hodograph... splitting supercells anyone?
The model clearly initiates storms as seen by the large values of omega (in the next frame, vertical motion explodes), but I'm not too impressed with how straight that hodograph is. The RAP is telling a similar story with only a briefly curved hodograph right as the front is plowing through.

EDIT: Essentially what I'm getting at is that as it stands, it looks like any supercell structures are going to be brief. And without any components of vorticity being streamwise, it's going to take more time and effort for a thunderstorm to start rotating at all. If anything happens, I'm not too confident it will last long.

 

[David Williams]

Looks like the Archer City cell is the first storm to really get going. Nice call Jason Boggs on your target! I was going to target Seymour, and I would either be playing catch-up right now or heading northwest for the twin cells that just fired.

 

[Greg Blumberg]

As long as the storm motions are off of the straight line hodograph, then you'll be getting stream wise horizontal vorticity and the supercells will maintain their low pressure perturbation centers. Comparing this radar image to the ones now, it doesn't look like the storms are maintaining any of their mid-level mesocyclones via splitting, which makes sense since they are all moving along the direction of the mean cloud-layer wind and therefore their storm motion vectors are remaining on the hodograph. We need to get the storms to split, which also would mean that we need the low-level vorticity to be strong enough to tilted and stretched so it can develop new updrafts along the flanks of any initial cell. Here is where I think we have a problem...poor lapse rates means weak stretching. So any splitting may be a consequence of the environment changing over the next few hours or any horizontal variability in the environment the cells are moving into.

 

[Andy Berrington]

Nice circulation aloft on that storm SE of SPS.