5/22/06 NOW: CO/ NE/ KS

[Chris Allington]

Convection has been persisting along the front range for about an hour with several clusters ongoing. Also isolated development seems to be occuring just to the SW of Wray with returns starting to pick up these last couple of scans. If this can stay isolated it is in a pretty favorable area to become a nice supercell. The only real limiting factor is the high temp/ dp spreads in the area.

 

[mikegeukes]

EL PASO COUNTY COLORADO, TORNADO REPORTED WITH DAMAGE

AT 349 PM MDT...TRAINED WEATHER SPOTTERS REPORTED A TORNADO 6 MILES
NORTH OF ELLICOTT...OR ABOUT 20 MILES EAST OF COLORADO SPRINGS...
MOVING NORTH AT 30 MPH. DAMAGE HAS BEEN REPORTED IN ELLICOTT. [/b]

Mike

 

[Chris Hayes]

Sitting at a small community college near Wray. Watched a towering CU go, and try to form a storm. It's getting a little bit north of wray now. Wondering what I should do. Would kinda like to go after the storms to the SW of Wray, but dont like how they're forming into a line.

 

[Mike Johnston]

Note boundary visible on Goodland radar, oriented N/S w/ the cell over northern Yuma Co firing right along, so wouldn't be surprised to see additional cells form along this boundary. However, deep layer shear has not quite progressed to this target area yet , so have to question the prospects for rotating storms, despite some pooling of instability and very steep lapse rates.

Elsewhere, extreme NW NM, and even the TX and OK panhandles, SW KS look very interesting...finally, some actual 850/500 crossover enters the high plains, w/ surface low moving out of the 4 corners area, and a sharp thermal gradient. Overall visible negative tilt of this system is encouraging. Action today likely just a warm-up act for tomorrow, but with plenty of daylight left out there, I would definitely not give up too soon with these dynamics approaching.