2017-03-28 EVENT: TX/OK

[Ben Holcomb]

Definitely looking forward to tomorrow after perusing the 12z NAM and GFS. Great mid and upper level support as a strong jet slams into the warm sector right around peak heating. Great directional shear and moisture pulling into the sfc low in the western TX Panhandle near 00Z with dewpoints along the red river nearing 60-65F.

My only real worry is a weakness in the hodographs and even some S-shaped ones further east. Could lead to some messy HP modes.

Pretty confident, however, we'll have a pretty obvious target near Childress, and any storms that should fire on that dryline bulge should move at a reasonable storm motion (less than 30 knots) and interact favorably with a E/W draped warm front.

Downside to tomorrow will be hordes, as it's such an "easy" target.

 

[Ethan Schisler]

My chase group will be departing Illinois this afternoon for a general target of NW TX/SW OK for tomorrow's setup. As Ben stated above, Childress area seems to be the "obvious" target at the moment and there will probably be quite a few people to contend with in this area as well. I have some concerns as well about the hodograph shape and the storm mode, however I think that will be better defined as we get more data tomorrow morning. This will be the first "plains chase trip" of the 2017 season for myself, hoping to continue my success this year Good luck to everyone heading out.

 

[Stephan M Ellis]

Any hams chasing in SW Oklahoma are welcome to checkin to the LIRA net. We'll be up and running if necessary. Here's the list of linked repeaters:

• Altus, OK 443.300MHz +5 PL 123.0 (reaches into Childress on occasion)
• Grandfield, OK 442.200MHz +5 PL 123.0 (Kinda weak, right now, but if you're close, should be fine)
• Lawton, OK 442.525MHz +5 PL 123.0 (Great coverage all around the Lawton Area)
• Cement, OK 444.450MHz +5 PL 123.0 (coverage up to Newcastle, OK)
• More info at http://www.wx5law.org

We'd be happy to take reports and get them up to Norman. I appreciate what you guys do and will be glad to have eyes on any storms in the area.
73 de KG5ICZ

 

[Ethan Schisler]

Adding onto my post from earlier, looking at some of the latest 3km NAM data, I'm a little concerned about the morning wave of convection that develops and sweeps through N TX/S OK around mid-day to afternoon. I'm not saying that recovery behind this wouldn't be possible, but it would certainly throw a fly in the ointment as far as discrete storm mode goes as that looks fairly linear in nature to me. The hodographs and thermodynamic environment ahead of this initial wave though is primed for tornadic development. However further west behind this wave along the actual dry line, the environment still regains "juice" by 23-01z with MLCAPE values in the 2-3k J/KG range along this triple point area that develops from the modulated convective outflow from the morning stuff. Low level helicity in this region is quite abundant as well with values generally exceeding 300 m2/s2. Any storm that goes up in that environment (or can) and can maintain itself in a somewhat discrete or even semi-discrete manner should have tornado/low level mesocyclone probability.

That is the for the first target that I highlighted earlier invof the Childress area. Another potential area to watch would be associated with the lead wave further east just south of the Red River perhaps towards I-35 (Gainesville, TX) area. The storms that push toward this area are associated with the lead wave which kicks off the early convection on the NAM, if you can get a discrete or semi-discrete storm to form in this regime, it could be quite favorable as well as hodographs look optimal to me....storm mode being a bigger question here though.

Obviously as I've delved further into it, its a much much more complex forecast at the moment than what we were looking at just 24 hours ago based on the latest model guidance. It has that look of the May 7-8, 2015 setups in Northern Texas to me kinda. Both days featured tornadoes, but were difficult chases because of storm mode and early convection.

 

[Quincy Vagell]

Still some discrepancies between HRRR and NCAR with convective placement down along the dryline. NCAR has been southeast of other CAMs, but even so, virtually all guidance shows a huge mess erupting near the triple point and along the western edge of the warm front during the afternoon.

Chase targets will come down to mesoscale trends/obs during the morning and chaser preference between the triple point/warm front and dryline.

The biggest potential red flags appear to be pregame convection and afternoon/early evening storm mode.

Otherwise the parameter space is favorable for severe, including tornadoes, with better quality moisture in place than we saw on Sunday.

 

[Troy Scheiber]

With the wide swath of storms firing today, the challenge will be positioning before dark sets in. They look to fire off late.


Sent from my iPhone using Stormtrack

 

[Ben Holcomb]

12Z raobs show some very deep/rich gulf moisture on the Del Rio, Midland and even Fort Worth soundings, with very good lapse rates. MAF sounding is the classic capped/loaded gun "field goal" look.

Water Vapor shows a very highly amplified/negatively tilted trough digging thru the AZ/NM/Mexico border area with a decent wave back in mid New Mexico, which should run into this warm sector later this afternoon.

Unfortunately I can't leave Norman until after an appointment at 2:15, so I will be heading southwest as soon as I'm done.