Beginning Descent into Chase Season 2014

Davenport office forecast discussion had an opinion relevant to this discussion (not that I'd get too worked up)


http://forecast.weather.gov/product...VN&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1

MAJOR REGIME CHANGE STARTING DAYS 5 INTO DAY 10 NORMALLY SUGGEST
MAJOR CHANGES IN SOLUTIONS AND PREDICTABILITY NEXT SEVERAL DAYS.
THIS CHANGE WILL RESULT IN MUCH WETTER CONDITIONS ALONG WEST COAST
WITH MILDER TEMPERATURES AT/BEYOND DAY 10 FOR CENTRAL US. THE
MAGNITUDE OF ENERGY CHANGES IN THE PACIFIC ARE AMONG THE HIGHEST
I HAVE SEEN OVER A 5 DAY PERIOD USING MULTIPLE SOURCES IN 35 YEARS
OF ANALYSIS. THE MEANING...THIS WILL NOT BE A MINOR CHANGE AND
SHOULD RESULT IN MAJOR TEMP/MOISTURE CHANGES LASTING MANY WEEKS
AND QUITE POSSIBLY MONTHS. TELECONNECTION WEIGHTING SUPPORTS MAY
RESULT IN AN ACTIVE SPRING...MUCH MORE TYPICAL THAN WHAT HAPPENED
LAST YEAR WHICH THIS AUTHOR CORRECTLY ASSESSED WOULD HAPPEN LAST
WINTER. THERE MAY BE SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN KEY INDICES USED IN
TELECONNECTION TECHNIQUES NEXT SEVERAL WEEKS DUE TO THIS REGIME
CHANGE. THIS WILL BE QUITE EDUCATIONAL TO MONITOR. THE REGIME WE
ARE ON A TRAJECTORY FOR...FAVORABLY SUPPORTS HIGHS IN THE 50S AND
POSSIBLY 60S AT TIMES BY LATE IN THE MONTH...QUITE A CHANGE FROM
PAST 2 MONTHS. THE WEST COAST AND INTER-MOUNTAIN REGION WILL SEE
IMPRESSIVE RAIN TOTALS FOR AT LEAST THE NEXT FEW WEEKS. THIS MAY
CONTINUE BASED ON ANALOGS AND STATISTICAL WEIGHTING IN
TELECONNECTIONS LOCALLY USED BY THIS AUTHOR...FOR MUCH OF THE
EARLY TO MID SPRING...POSITIVE IMPACTS TO WESTERN DROUGHT...HIGH
PW/S WOULD SUPPORT FLOODING RISKS THOUGH.

COMMENT...KEEP IN MIND REFERENCES MADE LAST FALL BY THIS AUTHOR IN
AFD/S THAT CORRECTLY DIAGNOSED OUR RISK AND THE REALITY OF PROLONGED
COLD OVER MUCH OF NORTH AMERICA.
 
Yeah dont take that too seriously. Just because they nailed the winter (who could've guess a cold winter), doesn't mean there's a massive swing in the short term climate. But what I did think they were right on, is that this change will be educational to watch unfold. Every single person in this area want to see the drought end. It is good to hear someone say that there might be an end to it soon.
 
Boy, that seems like an unusually strong statement. I'm not saying I don't believe the forecaster, but it comes across as someone perhaps a little unhappy to have been overlooked for other positions and taking it out in an AFD.

Of course, the "I was right before, so I'll be right this time" rule is never violated :)
 
I enjoy all the speculation as much as anyone, and liken it to debating the outcome of an upcoming (insert your favorite sport here) season. But last year proved that all the hand-wringing is pointless. It was so inactive that everyone was willing to write off the season, and then we had those two amazing weeks in late May (not that I capitalized, but that's a different story, and I can't say I didn't have the opportunities! :)

However, my perspective is skewed by being a chase vacationer. I only get two weeks to chase, so as long as there are two good weeks that correlate with my schedule I am happy. I can understand how that might not be enough for those that live on the Plains and hope for consistent opportunities over many weeks. For those, spreading the opportunities out over many weeks is probably more preferable than concentrating them all in the same two weeks, if trying to keep up with job and family responsibilities while squeezing in chases.

Of course, even as a chase vacationer a long, active season is advantageous, in that it is more likely that conditions will be good when I am heading out. When there is only one good but short period, it becomes very stressful to time my trip appropriately, and although last year the timing was perfect that was only a coincidence and it may not always work out that way. I only have flexibility within a relatively small window; I am not completely flexible the entire season. This year, my window of opportunity is from May 19 to June 7 - I can be away 14 days within those 18 and can adjust as necessary within that window depending on conditions.

Too much early activity tends to get me nervous that the season will shut down before I arrive. And no early activity makes me worry that nothing will ever get going. I guess either way we are more likely to fear the worst, because chasing is something we look forward to in a way that only we understand.

My goal this year is to just try not to worry about it, taking the lessons of last year, and even this past winter, in which our local Philadelphia NWS meteorologists did not seem to anticipate the extent of snow and ice we have had when they wrote a discussion searching for analogs at the beginning of the season. Easier said than done, and I will be on here unable to resist reading and participating in the debate!



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Agreed, there is no conclusive way to figure out what a season is going to do. I just enjoy hearing everyone's take on it considering a lot of us are still experiencing winter blasts from the depths of Canada (I ate it on some ice on the South Oval trying to get to class this morning) and need some outlet. The thing I always think of this time of year is the 2010 season, where nothing happened for most of March, leading people to call it doomed, only to have April explode over the central and southern Plains. It really shows that none of us have even the slightest clue, even when we get into actual spring.

That AFD is interesting though, the forecaster seems to have something to prove to somebody else who doubted their predictions based on highly subjective numerical model guidance. I like the mention of the potential to ease the drought but I'm not overly optimistic based off of one forecaster's opinion.
 
Derek, around here in the TX Panhandle, the drought is playing a huge influence on our severe weather. Our last good year of severe weather in the panhandle was in 07. We've been in a pretty rough drought since then. I can remember in 08 or 09 seeing dewpoints in the 60's in the early morning, only to mix eastward 75-150 miles due to the shallow nature of the moist air. Evapotranspiration plays a bigger part in dryline location and severe weather than most people give it credit for. When we have a lot of moisture here in the Panhandle, it's not unordinary to chase in eastern NM a few times a year. I've only chased in eastern NM once in the last 4 or 5 years.
 
Derek, around here in the TX Panhandle, the drought is playing a huge influence on our severe weather. Our last good year of severe weather in the panhandle was in 07. We've been in a pretty rough drought since then. I can remember in 08 or 09 seeing dewpoints in the 60's in the early morning, only to mix eastward 75-150 miles due to the shallow nature of the moist air. Evapotranspiration plays a bigger part in dryline location and severe weather than most people give it credit for. When we have a lot of moisture here in the Panhandle, it's not unordinary to chase in eastern NM a few times a year. I've only chased in eastern NM once in the last 4 or 5 years.
Couldn't agree more. Drought, or lack thereof, is essential to determining the type of season seen in the Panhandles and E NM. I would add that 2010 had a few good setups, too (4/22, 5/18, 5/23), and what do you know; it was relatively wet. All the other years (2008-09, 2011-present) have featured substantial drought, and there have been no truly good tornado days in that region, not counting flukey/localized examples like 4/29/09 and 4/01/13.

FWIW, the falls/winters of 2006-07 and 2009-10 were also the only over that period to feature El Nino. This year, we've seen weak La Nina (near netural) over the fall and winter months.

One final point: it's certainly true that the dryline can mix east more quickly due to drought conditions. But another relevant phenomenon during drought years is boundary-layer moisture simply mixing over too deep a vertical layer in the moist sector, even if the dryline holds to the west. You can find several examples of setups in recent years (5/29/13 being one) where the dryline remained over the Panhandles through much of the day, but T-Td depressions reached unfavorable levels by early afternoon that were not well-forecast by most models. To put it another way, drought is not going to force a dryline east to I-35 when synoptic-scale dynamics favor a lee trough/low just east of the Rockies, but drought can still ruin your chase day by encouraging high LCLs east of the dryline.
 
Has there been a lot of research regarding evapotranspiration and it's effects on storm seasons in certain areas? Is this something that normally just affects areas that interact with the dryline?

I know of one instance here in Illinois where evapotranspiration played a big role in increasing dewpoints, during the Roanoke, Illinois tornado in July of 2004.

Does this mean the large snowpack here in the Midwest will be useful in spring setups? Or is it something that really affects drier areas like Eastern NM, western texas?
 
As others have mentioned, ongoing drought in the Texas Panhandle usually correllates with how that season goes. There's still plenty of time for a rainy March/early April out there -- as the TX PH season doesn't statistically peak until Late May/Early June. Would bet we see things start cranking up convection wise in the coming weeks, with the slow transition to Spring coming now. Got a feeling we are probably in for something about average numbers wise in 2014. I don't think March, April, and most of June will be nearly as silent again. An extreme local example is that Oklahoma has had four tornadoless Junes since records were kept I believe, two of those four came in the last two seasons (never had happened in back to back years). Considering the amount of tornado count inflation there has been since the 50s, that's quite an aberration. Got a feeling we'll see a bit better early and late season compared to last year and a May which is probably about what it was last year...how the season turns out for anyone will depend on what you can chase and how you chase it, as usual. Some guys had career years last year, I personally had a pretty bad year. Just how it goes.
 
The most recent drought map was not particularly encouraging for the TX PH.

20140204_tx_none.png



Like others have said, excluding a few out-of-left-field days in the past two-three years, the Panhandle has been extraordinarily quiet in terms of supercells/tornadoes. The lack of any decent surface moisture killed at least two setups this past season and I wouldn't be surprised to see that continue across the Llano Estacado and most of the Caprock unless a extended precipitation event occurs out there soon. I was hoping we'd maybe get lucky and the western High Plains would get at least decent snow pack but that looks highly unlikely now.
 
There's no way in hell I'm going to start a "long range forecast thread" and have my name as the initiator on it for the rest of the year just in case everything craps out! (lol).

Having said that, I'll note here in the "2014 descent" thread that the GFS is showing a potential kick off date for the 2014 season if the models pan out in the 240 hr. time frame. Either way, something fun to watch and break up the off season boredom.

http://www.twisterdata.com/index.ph...nding=n&output=image&view=large&archive=false

W.
 
Speaking of which, forecast highs this weekend is lower 80s here in W TX. To get that warm this early makes me think there might be some red flag warnings in place. And that's a bad sign already. CPC released a statement saying ENSO Neutral conditions through the Spring. However there's some signals of El Niño coming in the late summer/fall of this year. Maybe this could be the sign of a 2009/2010 season shaping up this and next year.
 
Looks like we may kick off with a few NE/SE oriented dryline days with moisture just getting absolutely scoured by a polar front immediately after if the GFS has the correct solution. The pattern shift is really encouraging though, all it takes is a few days of ridging and some better mid-level dynamics and there'll be some ok days in March with that type of upper air pattern.
 
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