Future of the season part deux

Mike Kovalchick said:
Ed Berry's latest extended forecast discussion just came out: http://weatherclimatelink.blogspot.com/

Offers some hope for the Central/Northern Plains although the time frame for this isn't spelled out very clearly in his discussion.
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Yep he basically said what Simon mentioned was our only hope for a decent season was and that was some sort of MJO. Though I'm not exactly sure what that is or what it means I was able to infer that was his reasoning was for mentioning a pattern of progressive troughs across the C/N Plains. Sounds good to me!
 
I actually remember studying up on NW flow events last year when storms were bumping up on the edge of the Bermuda high and wreaking all kinds of havoc last summer for quite a stretch. Some of the papers I ran across were specific studies on NW flow events and how they can result in severe weather outbreaks, and to boot they were very interesting.

Even this last week with the prevailing zonal flow there were isolated severe weather events throughout the whole week, with the coup de grace being yesterday when the derecho traveled from Kansas to West Virginia during the day. Granted this isn't something someone would want to chase per se, but I believe the way May has gone thusfar the severe weather events are going to be unusual and hard to forecast no matter how you slice it, at least for the foreseeable future. I was looking at the ECMWF (since the GFS is all over the place) and it actually looks promising about the time our annual chasecation begins (May 20th).

What baffles me is if we're transitioning from a weak La Nina to a Neutral ENSO environment, why in the world would the Vortex2 "powers that be" choose 2009 as the year they wanted kick off the biggest tornado project of all time? The Vortex2 project has within itself most of the premier tornado scientists and minds that exist in our country. I'm certain they took the prevailing climate conditions into consideration when they chose 2009 as the year to launch their project. In the end I believe that those who are saying 2009 isn't over by a long shot are pretty intelligent chasers and forecasters themselves!! ;)
 
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I agree that non-SW flow patterns can produce occasionally, but the ratio of tornado days are very small compared to tornado days in SW flow. As John said, those of us living outside the Plains can't afford to use up vacation days and finances chasing the marginal setups. If I could afford it, I'd be out there from March to July, no questions asked! But I have to pick my days carefully, and SW flow is the only time I know I can get the most 'bang for my buck'.

If I want marginal days with the off-chance of a tornado, the midwest and Ohio valley offers plenty of that from the spring to the fall. No need to go to CO/NE/SD for the same probabilities I can get a few hours from home :)
 
Ho-hum, it's another mediocre to poor severe weather pattern setting up just as the Virginia Tech storm chase team gets set to head out next Sunday (17th). Let's see, we did this in 2005 ... and 2006 ... and 2007 ... and 2008. The last 2 years we were blessed to wait out the dead pattern and have 2 extreme days of classic Plains chasing (7 days of stormless wandering in 2008, before the May 22-23 craziness in Kansas). In 2006, we called an audible on heading west and actually caught a small tornado 8 hours out of home port in the Raleigh NC metro area, then were by ourselves on a spectacularly structured multiple-meso supercell (tornado-warned, but no tornado, as far as we could tell) with a southeast-moving disturbance in the wide-open prairie terrain of central Illinois, and later got in a rain-wrapped meso in southern Wisconsin (with some decent Plains storms in between). In 2005, some upslope action in Colorado saved the trip.

We have a locked-in time to go (1 day after graduation, plus about 2 1/2 weeks) and so we go. Just like clockwork, there's a western ridge/eastern trough configuration within 3 days of our departure. We chase marginal slight risks, "see-texts", upslope, weak cold fronts, even pulse-storms ... whatever's there, all the while waiting to see if the trough makes a dip by late 2nd week. Looks like the same thing again.

We've fared well digging jewels out of the rocks over the years. We're game for it again. Best to all!
 
For some comparison, or entertainment, one might peruse this archived thread from May 2008.

http://stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=16154

Skip to mid-May, and most of the posts are very pessimistic posts worrying of a death ridge and unbreakable cap, much like we are now. We all know that is not how the last week of May and first week of June played out. A lot of the worrisome posting was done May 15-20th as well. We're only to May 9th now.

Best advice, sit back and wait.

Commenting more on Ed Berry's blog, he mentions at the he has some concern of a continued active pattern through August. This would likely effect with northern plains and midwest most, but for those without location / time leashes, this could be good news.

Afterward, and I think some readers will understand why, I do have some concern (low confidence) that heading into June with perhaps many episodes through August, that a synoptic pattern typical of ~GWO phase 4 may occur. That is, per 250mb snr psi composite anomaly plots centered ~15 July, USA west and east coast ridges with a trough across the central states into the Great Lakes at times.
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Simon Brewer said:
Unless another MJO wave can develop and propagate into the western Pacific by mid-June then I would expect very few good chases for the remainder of the year. :(

Best I can really hope for is a few ‘Northwesterly Flow Events’ over the Minnesota/Iowa/Illinois region.:mad:

Simon
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Sorry, I should have said, "I expect very few good chases for the remainder of the Spring" not the year. We could still have a somewhat active late summer and fall.

Also, don't be too discouraged: some of my favorite tornado outbreaks and chases occurred from 'Northwesterly Flow Events' over Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois.

I'm going to chase as many events during this zonal flow pattern as possible before the western ridge gets too large.

Simon
 
Looking at the thread from last year heres a post from Scott Weberpal on 5-9-08

"If you're starting your chase vacation after May 22 or so, things look good. Then again, we're talking about the GFS at 240+ hours "

It verified back then ;)

Sometimes the models hit it...sometimes they dont...and thus the long range models are always work looking at.

still dont like the overall pattern but latest runs break it down sooner than later so that is a sign of hope.
 
I kind of even hate to bring this up being so far out but according to the GFS (take it for what its worth) is showing that the ridge in the west starts to breakdown around the 19th to 20th and sets up over the Southeastern US. Whether or not this is at all accurate, it is a little encouraging to see this showing up. Its only May 10th so lets all just relax and see what happens.
 
David Mikulec said:
Unless you happen to live in the Southeast. :rolleyes:
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In the spirit of it being a Star Trek weekend...

"The means of the many outweigh the means of the few".... :p

Its May..Its chase vacation time.. the plains chasers outnumber all else..lol

It is nice to see the GFS finally showing a glimmer of hope for the last part of May. I will feel better if continues to show this instead of flopping back and forth.

You can always count on Memorial weekend for a bit of action around the plains.
 
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Jay McCoy said:
In the spirit of it being a Star Trek weekend...

"The means of the many outweigh the means of the few".... :p

Its May..Its chase vacation time.. the plains chasers outnumber all else..lol

It is nice to see the GFS finally showing a glimmer of hope for the last part of May. I will feel better if continues to show this instead of flopping back and forth.

You can always count on Memorial weekend for a bit of action around the plains.
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And the **Kling-on** empire will be sad that VOTREX2 canceled operations today!

W.
 
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