Future of the Season Part 3

[Chris Hayes]

About to come out of a fairly active March, and enter a (hopefully) final cold snap across the eastern part of the US, I thought I would start this thread. Any remaining drought across Oklahoma looks to be busted today and tonight as heavy rain falls across much of the state. Also, the drought across Texas could be alieveated (SP) a bit today also. In the Pacific we have a La Nina starting to develop. I know it's all speculation, but I was wondering what you all thought of the La Nina, and the now almost now non-existent drought across the centralPlains, and what you guys thought the impact of it being on the April-June portion of the storm season. I have until May 18th at the earliest till I leave to come out there for a good 3-5 week period.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/model/gfs180hr_500_wnd.gif

Eeeewwww. Looks like May 2006 lol. At least it is not May. Then again it is April which is the new May. Season over.

 

[Jason Persoff]

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/model/gfs180hr_500_wnd.gif

Eeeewwww. Looks like May 2006 lol. At least it is not May. Then again it is April which is the new May. Season over.

A bit confusing there, Mike . Yes, that looks like our friend the omega block with NW flow regime over the Plains. However, it's all longcasting for May in any case.

I've had better years chasing with El Nino than La Nina, but even when a 5-day forecast looks like there's nothing gonna happen in the upper levels, there can be occasional mesoscale features, CAPE, and LLJs that kick up some great storms that one wouldn't predict this far out. Time will tell.

 

[Jason McKittrick]

Since we are talking about droughts ending, as I am sure we are all aware there was a "glacier" over western Kansas and eastern Colorado from Christmas to about March 1st an awfully long time for snow to stick around in this part of the country. I heard some of the talking heads on TWC going on about how unusual it is for severe weather so far west this early. I also read some of the discussions here on storm track mentioning the moist soil holding the dryline back. I was wondering, Wednesday was the first time I have been to western Kansas to chase or for any other reason, are there normally that many lakes there? As we were traveling north from Garden City to Goodland I noticed either an abundance of lakes or more than likely a lot of agricultural land that is still under water presumably from the glacieral thaw? I have a feeling that the trend this year for outbreaks to occur farther west than normal may continue due to the local moisture source. It looks like IMO it may be tough to get a good dryline to set up outside of Colorado and New Mexico at least for a while.
Other than that I fear the weather we have been experiencing recently, such as here in Omaha where we have not seen our low temperature reach our normal high in over a week, may be an omen of whats ahead. Hopefully we do not find ourselves experiencing record highs over the alley come May.

 

[John MacKay]

It's usually pretty dry in western KS, and the lakes are not as numerous as say eastern KS. Most of it was likely the melted snow/ice this winter.

It's also very unusual to get this magnitude of severe weather near the KS/CO border until maybe mid to late April. A big reason is what you stated about the moisture on the ground. The last few years, the characteristics of the dryline have remained consistent throughout one season. You may also be right that the dryline may stick further west than normal (lucky me, well when it's a weekend with nothing else planned).

I'd rather get that stupid omega block out of the way now than in May. Still some potential, but even so, the omega block pattern has been very weak as far as anything severe that develops (as most people on here know). My last chase was in late May of last year, and I was excited to barrel into 60 mph winds on collapsing thunderstorms.

I'd pick late April (no reasoning, just a feeling). Just avoid any omega blocks if you can help it.

 

[Chris Hayes]

[/quote]Other than that I fear the weather we have been experiencing recently, such as here in Omaha where we have not seen our low temperature reach our normal high in over a week, may be an omen of whats ahead. Hopefully we do not find ourselves experiencing record highs over the alley come May.[/quote]

Today, and the past several days we've had highs in the 60s, to near 70, and some days in the 70s, pushing 80. Next week at this time, we'll be having a high in the lower 40s, and lows in the 20s. This warm shot is coming to and end, and we'll be in a cold spell for at least a few days.

 

[afischer]

I guess I don't see 3-28 as being as "unusual" as TWC does. It's late March... so what? We had the "sacrifical wave" of 3-23 and 3-24, which trucked northeastward and sheared out over the western Great Lakes. Thus, obviously, a big reservoir of decent BL moisture remained over the southern plains and lower-/mid-MS valleys. A big, slow-moving upper trough formed over the Rockies and drew the relatively rich BL moisture ~100nm farther west than might be typical. This is not unheard of for these more "meridional" set-ups. Don't tell people in Iraan, TX or Hugoton, KS that violent wedge tornadoes can't occur west of longitude 100W!

As for the rest of the season, of course I agree it can only help that the central & south plains have received beneficial precip over the past several months... esp as we head toward June. It was neat seeing patches of snow still in the ditches when I chased 3-24 around GLD.