2018 severe wx/chase season discussion

[Stan Rose]

Capital Weather Gang noted there have been fewer 'intense' tornadoes than at any other time so far. I think that's why this season is so abysmal for me--the weather is there it's just so 'meh'. And the reasons for that have already been discussed. I haven't seen a good photo of a photogenic (subjective) tornado thus far, which I cant recall happening in my 20+ yrs chasing. And zero success personally--Tescott came close for me but i ended up playing catchup over downed power lines so even that was a waste. The Roswell supercells have been pretty. Im seeing some hope for a return to quasi-normalcy by second week of June but after the last 6 weeks not much room for optimism really...i guess i should be happy since im getting married next week and that's far more dangerous than any tornado

 

[Jeff House]

Yes the middle of June could offer Upper Midwest (or Northern Plains or Midwest/OV) action. Timing is a little different on the ECWMF weeklies and CFS weeklies, but at least both show a possible week. CFS Dashboard has that Upper Midwest look. Good when they agree.

This coming week has more questions than answers. Southeast/Tenn. Valley low hinders moisture return, sad going into June. Central Plains wind fields look good early week, but moisture probably mixes out too much. Northern Plains/Upper Midwest shows an actual system late week, but timing is all over the place. Also a risk of single day, vs sequence, due to messy forecast wind fields. On the flip side there is the argument to just go with decent wind fields around/after Memorial Day. idk

Sadly I'm actually hoping for a tropical storm in the South to bring inland some 850 mb and other wind fields. If a South low is going to mess up the Plains, might as well make it tropical and have a go at Dixie. Did I just write that in late May?

 

[Quincy Vagell]

There is fairly strong support from both the EPS and weeklies in early June for pronounced troughing in southeastern Canada... again... but that would seem to suggest that areas from the eastern Dakotas into the upper Midwest and Great Lakes may have multiple severe weather opportunities starting around the first weekend in June and continuing for at least a while, before the pattern breaks down.

 

[Dean Baron]

For anyone who thinks the season ends at the end of May or beginning of June has probably rarely, if ever, chased the northern plains. The setups and storms may not be as perfect as they are in the central or southern plains, but there are always a few good setups up here through July and August. Models are starting to hint at a couple of potential setups around here too.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Congratulations Stan!

Next week doesn't look great, but doesn't look bad, either - at least compared to the last 2 weeks.. The TC impact on the moisture fetch is the big concern as well as big central US-sweeping cold fronts the operational GFS has been painting. Jeff is right, the post-landfall TC is often a player if it can get dry slotted. All in all, it looks like at least a time to go back on chase standby mode starting Wednesday, but quality of any given day might not be apparent until morning of.

 

[JamesCaruso]

I’m worried more about capping and hot surface temps next week than anything else but will take my chances on the northern Plains because I’m already inside of my remaining two week window before a hard stop return on June 7. If I don’t get out there now, that would be pretty much it for the season, and I just can’t give it up completely. The only potential upside of NOT heading out now would be possibly being able to get out there the week of June 11 (which I cannot do if I am out there the next two weeks, because that would be a third consecutive week and I just can’t do that). But that would be a short trip and everything would have to perfectly align. If I go out this week and end up coming back early because of inactivity, then I may be able to squeak out another short June trip. The week of June 18 is pretty much out for me no matter what. Anyway, when I say head out “now”, I am referring to the upcoming week, just trying to decide whether to fly out (likely to Omaha) on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday.


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[Jeremy Bower]

My expectations this year are lower than they've ever been. So low I have it in my head that I'll see nothing but blue skies the entire week I'm out. However, I'm fully committed to my chasecation of June 10 to 15 so good, bad, or indifferent, I'll try to get what I can get. I've discussed elsewhere with other chasers and there seems to be slight temperate optimism for the first two full weeks of June but I've been down this road every year for the past six years. At this point in my life, I'm content with not seeing a tornado. The mothership supercell photograph is my goal. I'm starting to think I'm the last chaser on the planet that doesn't have a photograph of one. After the past six years of hardships and shortcomings, I'm hoping to finally achieve that goal. Hope to see some of you out there.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Somewhat amazing the GFS picked up the tropical system interfering with chase RH several weeks ago.

Edit: For those who who still want to chase this year, we always have the monsoon in Arizona. Tornadoes rare, but lots of lightning and dust storms over fantastic landscapes and mountains.

 

[Brandon Centeno]

Somewhat amazing the GFS picked up the tropical system interfering with chase RH several weeks ago.

Edit: For those who who still want to chase this year, we always have the monsoon in Arizona. Tornadoes rare, but lots of lightning and dust storms.

Not really... This is a known bias in the GFS/GEFS to be way too aggressive on developing tropical systems. The GFS often induces TC genesis in the 240 hr + range, but never actually materializes. The GFS has been advertising a tropical system in the 240-384 hour range for pretty much the last 450-500 hours.. So this is just a case of a broken clock being right....

 

[JamesCaruso]

After all the hemming and hawing about when to start my chase vacation, the die have been cast: I am flying to Denver on Sunday morning. I don’t like flying in on a chase day, it can be stressful with time, especially if flights are delayed, connections missed, etc. But that’s the price of trying to time this thing too closely. I didn’t want to head out today so I could have a good quality day with the family, which is turning out to be the only day I will be with them for the holiday weekend. I have no regrets about not heading out sooner, I didn’t miss much and was able to do a number of quality family things this past week. As long as the flights work out tomorrow, I will be in Denver before noon and should be good to go.

I have to get back by June 7 so unfortunately I have less than two weeks available. Again I don’t regret any decisions to this point because I haven’t missed anything, but if things finally get crazy after June 7 I am going to be ready to quit this whole crazy avocation [emoji57]

 

[Brandon Centeno]

In case ya'll were curious..

TORNADO TOTALS AND RELATED DEATHS...THROUGH 24 MAY 2018
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
1120 PM CDT THU MAY 24 2018

...NUMBER OF TORNADOES... NUMBER OF KILLER
TORNADO DEATHS TORNADOES
..2018.. 2017 2016 2015 3YR 3YR 3YR
PREL ACT ACT ACT ACT AV 18 17 16 15 AV 18 17 16 15 AV
--- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
JAN 16 14 134 17 28 60 0 20 2 0 7 0 3 1 0 1
FEB 46 34^ 68 102 3 58 2 5 7 0 4 2 4 4 0 3
MAR 62 18^ 191 86 11 96 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0
APR 146 - 211 141 171 174 1 8 1 2 4 1 5 1 1 2
MAY 96 - 287 216 381 295 0 2 2 7 4 0 2 2 5 3
JUN - - 143 86 184 138 - 0 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 0
JUL - - 80 107 115 101 - 0 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 0
AUG - - 114 90 45 83 - 0 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 0
SEP - - 34 38 17 30 - 0 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 0
OCT - - 85* 20 40 48* - 0 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 0
NOV - - 46* 50 99 65* - 0 6 0 2 - 0 2 0 1
DEC - - 13* 18 83 38* - 0 0 26 9 - 0 0 6 2
--- ---- ---- ----- ---- ---- ----- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
SUM 366 66^ 1406* 971 1177 1186* 3 35 18 36 30 3 14 10 13 13

*PRELIMINARY REPORTS.
^PRELIMINARY VERSION OF ACTUAL COUNTS.

PREL = 2018 PRELIMINARY COUNT FROM ALL NWS LOCAL STORM REPORTS.
ACT = ACTUAL TORNADO COUNT BASED ON NWS STORM DATA SUBMISSIONS.

What is the min for May? 88 had 132 and 2006 139, according to the SPC's historical severe weather database. Surely we're pushing record territory here?

We'll probably end up around 120, if I had to guess. Fewer than April and well below average. A year to remember folks.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Decent supercell out there north of Dodge City. Rather troubling that this didn't get a tornado warning, even though it didn't last much longer, especially since it was relatively close to the radar and the couplet was at less than 1k feet up. I've seen many a much less ominous signature (both reflectivity and velocity) than this get warned.

Anyone on this?

.

 

[Todd Lemery]

They heard you...

 

[Andy Wehrle]

They heard you...

Different cell, lol. Looks like the second (and warned) one produced before the cell to the south just crashed into it.

 

[Alex Elmore]

Decent supercell out there north of Dodge City. Rather troubling that this didn't get a tornado warning, even though it didn't last much longer, especially since it was relatively close to the radar and the couplet was at less than 1k feet up. I've seen many a much less ominous signature (both reflectivity and velocity) than this get warned.

Storm Relative Velocity in GR3 is calculated somehow through the program itself. GR2 and AWIPS (what NWS forecasters use) allows for the manual calculation of SRV through storm motion (i.e. direction and speed), which is more accurate than SRV in GR3. Rotation was probably just not great enough and/or long enough for them to justify warning it.