5/26/06 NOW: KS / NE

[Jason Persoff]

Expect to see a MD and possible watch issues for the KS/NE border in the next few hours.

See my sketch below. Outflow boundary just N of I-70 continues to propagate into clear skies to the northeast. High CAPE, sfc heating, and awesome Tds are in the area and haven't mixed much according to the latest mesoanalysis. Low pressure system well delineated in SE CO moving east. Good backing winds in advance of the boundary.

Suspect there is a mod chance of tornadoes along this well-defined boundary. Cu field with some congestus are already forming.

Jason

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

I'm in Grand Island now, heading to that general location. That is just too tempting to skip for the panhandle stuff. Just look at the 850-500 crossover and the se sfc winds with better dews. Ruc is dead set on firing something on the NE/KS border near here too.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

This is for CO. Currently a torn. warned cell west of limon. Possible rotation visible from radar.

 

[Jason Persoff]

MCD #0990 out for this area. While hail and winds are the main threats, MCD increases discussion of isolated tornadoes.

MCD Image

AIRMASS ACROSS THE HIGH PLAINS HAS BECOME MODERATELY UNSTABLE WITH
MLCAPE VALUES AROUND 2000-2500 J/KG. STORMS THAT HAVE FORMED ACROSS
THE MOUNTAINS WILL MOVE E/NE INTO THE AREA OF GREATER INSTABILITY
OVER THE NEXT FEW HOURS. IMPULSE NOTED IN WV IMAGERY ACROSS NRN
NM/SRN CO WILL MOVE TOWARD THE AREA AND THIS WILL INCREASE STORM
COVERAGE/INTENSITY. LAPSE RATES ARE VERY STEEP...AND THE COMBINATION
OF FAVORABLE UPSLOPE FLOW AND INCREASING LARGE SCALE ASCENT WILL
LIKELY RESULT IN STRONG TO SEVERE TSTMS LATER THIS AFTN. THE MAIN
THREATS WILL BE MICROBURST WINDS AND LARGE HAIL. FAVORABLE
DIRECTIONAL SHEAR WILL ALSO CONTRIBUTE TO ROTATING UPDRAFTS...WITH
THE POTENTIAL FOR ISOLD TORNADOES.[/b]

Re: TOR in Limon...

TORNADO WARNING FOR...
CENTRAL ELBERT COUNTY IN EAST CENTRAL COLORADO

* UNTIL 345 PM MDT

* AT 300 PM MDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO 15 MILES
SOUTHWEST OF AGATE...OR ABOUT 23 MILES WEST OF LIMON. THIS STORM
WAS MOVING EAST AT 10 MPH.

* LOCATIONS IN THE WARNING INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO AGATE.

----

I expect more surface-based convection in the next 2-3 hours. Still keeping my original target.

Jason

 

[Jason Persoff]

Well, I am shocked...I'm going to chase today just east of Denver. Unfortunately, this thread was for my original target in KS/NE. So I'll bag further discussion of CO weather. TOR watch box is up for all of NE CO including metro DEN. I would still expect convection to go up in my original target, but since I'm suddenly chasing today, I just have to hope others can continue putting up their thoughts in this thread! Chase safe !

PS This will be my son's first chase with Dad. Wooohooo! A new storm chaser in the ranks.

Jason

 

[Darren Addy]

Ryan McGinnis is taking a couple of vacation days in Kearney, so this is a well-timed and welcome surprise. I'll be riding shotgun and we'll be leaving Kearney heading south and west shortly. Hope the cap breaks! (Checks watch: Yep. It's still May!)

Darren Addy
Kearney, NE

 

[Jeff Snyder]

(4) Chase Forecasts forum. In the Chase Forecasts forum, we allow two types of messages, as follows.
* FCST is for discussing forecast aspects of severe weather that has not occurred yet
* NOW is for discussing forecast aspects of severe weather that is occurring right now.

If your post is not about ongoing weather, please put it on the FCST thread.

 

[samuel stone]

Nice supercell has exploded in sheridan county kansas, I have been watching this area all day from home, now I'm pissed I cant chase today because of a wedding I thought I was going to but at the last minute apparently I'm not. Anyways as far as the storm goes I thinkits tornado potential will increa the further northeast it gets as it will head into better mosture there. God I hope someone gets on that cell. I bet its gonna start exhibiting some nice structure and possibly a few tornadoes. look How isolated it is. Chasers dream cell.

 

[Fritz Kruse]

That storm east of GLD is just on the edge of the cap, see our short fuse from Dodge City.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/ddc/short/SFC2_latest.png

Not sure if any will fire in the capped air east of there, but if they do
the T-Td spreads are much lower in NE than KS. I would be very
surprised if any "real" tornado drops out in KS.

 

[Adam Atkins]

Not so sure it's a supercell due to the several areas of midlevel convergence, could possibly be several updrafts clustered together. The environment is favorable for supercells once a single updraft dominates. Strong cap and weak forcing has really isolated the low level convergence in Northern Kansas which has lead to good storm separation and a nice chase.

 

[Kiel Ortega]

The storm east of GLD is definitely a supercell (probably LP, but we have some small hail reports from it). It has great storm top divergence, a really nice midlevel meso w/ a hole in the velocity data at midlevels!!!! (Haven't seen that before except with reflectivity/BWERs). We're doing Project SHAVE here at the lab and are looking at it (and drooling). :-D

 

[samuel stone]

Tornado or no tornado, I bet some one will get some great structure pics from that cell.

EDIT: apears to be double mid level mesos, if you look at elevation angle 1.45 thereis one meso just east of Hoxie, ks and another in western graham county, looks like two sepperate updrafts possibly too sorta like adam said.

 

[samuel stone]

looks like it has seperated into 3 seperate updrafts at this point, all exhibiting rotaion at some level of the thuderstorm. I actually like the chances of the furthest east cell for producing a tornado more than any other cell at this point as it should not be quite as high based. I just checked latest velocity scan and there appears to be a low level rotation couplet now on the furthest east cell (northern rooks, phillips county). looks like we could possibly get a "real" tornado out of that one. Although reflectivity hook looks pretty good on the Sheridan county cell as well.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

I agree that it is a supercell, or at least "mostly" a supercell. Cross-sections from the GLD radar as viewed by GR2AE indicate nice echo overhang, and a BWER is seen on that storm as well.

 

[Kiel Ortega]

A quick note (hoepfully no one doesn't get too mad I bend the rules)...that KS storm near Hoxie (back when we were talking about it) had a storm top divergence approaching 200 kts (I took a look, the number was given to me, but the velocities were maxed out)!!! Great storm...hopefully some one has some pics from the ground on it.