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3/4 FCST: Thursday Southern Plains

THURSDAY CHASE

Yes, tomorrow sure looks great on paper. There are plenty of positives like low-level moisture, tremendous lift, a great dry punch, and tremendous directional and speed shear. But are there negatives? Yes, cloud cover for one. Timing of the surface and upper air is another. Also, any storms that do form will be racing off to the northeast. It will be like trying to catch a speeding train!! I just hope that when I wake up in the morning there is not a squall line from Abilene to Del Rio. So, these are my concerns. But, I can't worry about it. The weather situation looks to good to pass up. So, I've already taken tomorrow off work and have cleaned up the cameras, and checked the batteries. I'm ready for the first chase of the year. Good luck everyone. TM
 
Thursday

The incoming wave certainly looks great on water vapor imagery, and it's muggy as can be down here in SE TX. Agree that the lack of real upper level data to feed into the models at this time may limit this system's predictability (but it may not even matter if we can't get model data anywhere). 00z soundins from across TX show decent lapse rates, so I'm not sure why model soundings keep tending to show horrible lapse rates (looks to be indicative of subsidence) in a layer between 500-400mb tomorrow. If that happens, we may be in for bust-city as shear rips apart CAPE-starved cu's that reach 20k' and fizzle. If the model forecast soundings are wrong, then we could be in for a show.

Either way, the A&M stormchasing team will be out in force tomorrow. We're tentatively targeting the I-35 corridor, but frankly we're just going to have to wait until morning to see. Either way, we plan on forecasting a location for initiation and then backing off of that about 60km to the NE, in hopes of picking off one of these storms before they leave us in the dust.

Good luck to everyone tomorrow.
 
I'm increasingly pessimistic about chasing opportunities Thursday. This system reminds me a lot of the high risk day on 6 April 2001, just displaced to the southeast.

The system is coming out very far south and with a slight negative tilt, so winds in the mid troposphere should back to nearly due south in much of the warm sector. This makes the shear profile actually quite marginal, about 40 kts of speed shear and very little directional shear in the 1 to 6 km layer.

The only area where there might be sufficient shear for significant supercells and tornadoes will be in the vicinity of the warm front, but I expect the area north of the front to be socked in with stratus and elevated thunderstorms in the morning. Given south to north storm motion, any storms that develop near or approach the warm front will quickly cross the boundary into the cold air.

I ran a Bunkers et al. storm motion estimate based on the 00Z eta for McAlester valid at 00Z tomorrow night, and right moving supercells are forecast to move out of about 210 degrees at 55 kts!! This is simply not a feasible chasing situation in such terrain. The best one can do, I think, is find a high spot and watch as a storm roars by.

I expect elevated hail-producing supercells to develop in the hill country up into southwest Oklahoma in the morning and spread northeastward. The storms developing near Midland currently should become more organized as they approach the metroplex and southern Oklahoma in the morning, eventually organizing into an intense squall line with embedded circulations.
 
My concern is also the backed 500mb and above winds. The sfc to 850mb shear is awesome, but above that, the winds back with height. I'm hoping the 500mb low comes out farther north than SW TX, so as to veer mid-level winds across s. OK and n. TX... Again, though, I'm not putting toooo much faith in the models seeing how there is very little data collection near the low right now...

Jeff

P.S. -- this thing isn't going to do anything tornadic if the ETA CAPE forecast is correct... I mean, everything north of DFW has CAPE <500! Are you kidding me?! Yes, this is a dynamic system, but no way are we going to have long-lived, tornadic supercells with CAPEs ~250 J/kg... It's now a necessity that we get some clearing and sfc temps can warm up... otherwise we'll all be chasing weak, strongly forced, and strongly sheared storms moving at 70kts...
 
Got into Norman a couple of hours ago...looks like tomorrow will be a decent day for a little field trip instead of sitting in the NSSL conference all day :) .
Gonig to check things out in the morning before making a final decision on a target, but the DFW area currently looks good for starters.
Good luck and safe travels to all who are chasing tomorrow!!

Angie Norris
 
I agree with Kevin - this is April 6, 2001 all over again. The good thing is, this time we know we're screwed. Our plan is to get down to DFW by noon, hope the ongoing line of storms SW of there (which I expect to be the same cluster currently down by MAF) hasn't made too much progress NE, and let the line come to us. The ETA shows backed surface winds along and just west of I-35 through 21z, which may be the only hope we have of tornadoes, at least viewable ones. As I said yesterday, this ain't gonna be an easy chase, but I'm ready for the challenge.

As of this posting, the area from Stephenville to brownwood looks best, with backed surface winds to almost 90 degrees. This will no doubt change/fluctuate during the day, but if any areas like this can develop along the line, there's a good chance of at least brief tornadoes.....and with energy like what we have tomorrow, a quick tornado doesn't necessarily mean a weak one.
 
Dont forget about So. Illinois towards Bootheel of Mo. timing & some sunlight should get things hopping here very well tomorrow. I dont get off work until 10 :( but wife will be out & hopefully we can both get some action around here. It POTENTIALLY looks good for sig. Severe weather.
Kevin
 
Rather than commit to a specific area, I am going to play the area just south of the warm front/precip shield. Probably end up starting between Pauls Valley and Davis.

Going to be an "interesting" day...

Chris Sokol/KD5ILI
Mobile Weather Concepts
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
 
High risk going to be issued soon in 1630 outlook.

A HIGH RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS WILL BE ISSUED AT 1630Z DAY1
OUTLOOK. AN OUTBREAK OF TORNADOES...DAMAGING WINDS AND LARGE HAIL
WILL ACCOMPANY THE STRONGEST STORMS AS THEY DEVELOP NEWD ACROSS NRN
TX...CENTRAL/ERN OK INTO NWRN AR. REFER TO THE 1630Z DAY1 OUTLOOK
FOR MORE DETAILS.
 
Gosh I wish I was there with you. Rest assured there are many on the weather forums over here watching this situation as it develops - stay safe everyone chasing today or not chasing but in the risk areas!
 
note to posters and analysis

Posters,

Please provide links to text products. Also it would be nice to add some analysis with these and not simply paste large blocks of text that most will have seen anyway. Remember, anybody who knows where this site is also knows where the SPC site is.

Here's some things I've been looking at:

The latest RUC demonsrates an impressive dryline punch into central Texas between 18-22Z. This area in co-located with the intersection of
jets and the best instability and could create extremely favorable 0-
1k profiles as winds should back locally there. I would make for
south of the metroplex, maybe fifty miles south of Waxahachie. I
would stay on the interstate if possible today to give myself a
fighting chance in terms of interception speed and vectors.

Skies look to clear as the dry punch works
in; it's already visible on the channel imagery and should work
north to south. However as the midlevel winds begin to veer (good
for directinal profiles) the debris from ongoing convection will
tend to spread more to the east than north and may replace the cloud
cover you lose. Instability is a problem with this setup, but I
think it can be overcome.

You're going to need data or a nowcaster today or don't even
bother. It's a fast-moving grungy mess with LCL's so low that
clouds will scrape the ground, making visual identification of
features difficult. Be careful!! Good luck to all!!

Amos
 
GOING TO BE A HIGH RISK DAY!

...AN UPGRADE TO A HIGH RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS WILL BE ISSUED
AT 1630Z...


A HIGH RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS WILL BE ISSUED AT 1630Z DAY1
OUTLOOK. AN OUTBREAK OF TORNADOES...DAMAGING WINDS AND LARGE HAIL
WILL ACCOMPANY THE STRONGEST STORMS AS THEY DEVELOP NEWD ACROSS NRN
TX...CENTRAL/ERN OK INTO NWRN AR. REFER TO THE 1630Z DAY1 OUTLOOK
FOR MORE DETAILS.
Click to expand...

http://kamala.cod.edu/spc/0403041528.acus11.html

I wonder how far this will spread.
 
Just some gee-whiz output from the 15Z RUC. I plan to compare these panels after-the-fact to see how well the RUC did.

http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/mar0421.gif - 15Z RUC 06h (for 21Z)
http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/mar0500.gif - 15Z RUC 09h (for 00Z)
http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/mar0503.gif - 15Z RUC 12h (for 03Z)

Blue - storm relative helicity; red - convective precip; purple - surface winds

Basically at dusk the RUC has a line from TUL-FTW with isolated cells out ahead in E and SE OK. Will be interesting to see how all this pans out.

Tim
 
Impressive radar images on southern plains this morning

It looks like a LEWP with some embedded supercells/circulations. It seems pretty early in the day for a PDS Tornado Watch to be issued. Who knows what could happen this afternoon when more discrete storms could develop? That squall line must be sending out a strong outflow boundary. I think where ever that boundary goes, is where the big storms will initiate.

It is starting to look like a heavy rain event here in Northern IL, SPC has removed extreme northern IL from todays convective outlook, despite the fact that the temperatures could be 60-65 here by tomorrow morning. I'm hoping for some hail/gusty winds, and some brilliant CG's.

GOOD LUCK CHASERS! :D
 
I wish I still lived in Abilene

SEVERE WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN ANGELO TX
1144 AM CST THU MAR 4 2004

...A TORNADO WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR TAYLOR COUNTY UNTIL 1215
PM CST...

AT 1141 AM CST...A FUNNEL CLOUD WAS REPORTED JUST WEST OF BUFFALO
GAP...OR ABOUT 14 MILES SOUTH OF ABILENE...MOVING NORTHEAST AT 50
MPH. PEOPLE IN EASTERN TAYLOR COUNTY FROM ABILENE TO POTOSI TO LAWN
SHOULD TAKE COVER NOW!

DAMAGING WINDS IN EXCESS OF 70 MPH WILL ALSO BE LIKELY ACROSS MUCH
OF TAYLOR COUNTY AND WIND DAMAGE HAS BEEN REPORTED IN MERKEL.

LAT...LON 3231 9992 3216 9980 3231 9964 3247 9973
 
Sun is shining in Dallas now......

The sun has broken through the clouds in the D/FW area, should get some surface heating going soon.

Chris
 
This whole thing's going gangbusters. If you live/are chasing anywhere between Norman and Denton today - be on your guard.

I think we'll be investing in a tornado shelter this year when all is said and done, living in Oklahoma.

There is a huge risk out for an area in Oklahoma between Norman and Ardmore for tornado potential. Long lived, strong tornadoes.

You can't chase any of this. It'll be moving faster that you on a highway. Choose a secure spot to watch it roll over you, if you must. Maybe on top of the correct type of overpass - with scalable concrete girders underneath.

Nervously,

Karen Rhoden
South Norman, Oklahoma

www.stormskies.com
 
I've just hung up with TomT and David Drummond. They are on I-20 in Eastland County Texas. They report lots of low level rotation, the clear slot has closed there and they just reported 2 funnels and now rotation on the ground. He hung up so they could get out of the way.. ITS HAULING
 
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