Is this really May???

Comparatively speaking this season has sucked a** when put up against other seasons. Also proven, it is not the worst compared to others seasons. I think for anyone in OK and TX who can not get out of their states for what ever reason, this year is dry and boring with only a few handful of chase days in these areas. Some people just can’t take off weeks at a time to do nothing but chase these “marginal setupsâ€￾. I happen to be one of them. I juggle a lot of responsibilities in order to chase when I need to and it is not easy.

I personally do not mind seeing a thread like this start. Facts are facts no matter which way you choose to perceive it. I'm not going to bitch about this season because I have had my fill, but understanding that other wx fans have not. Therefore I am sure it sucks for them.

Mick
 
Well said, Shane. I like your philosophy. Perhaps we need a bumper sticker that says:

"A Bad Year of Storm Chasing Beats Still Beats the Best Year of Work".

Darren Addy
Kearney, NE
 
May sucks threads

For those of you who are tired of seeing threads similar to these ones, why not skip over them? It's that simple. What's wrong with voicing an opinion. We live in a country with the freedom of speech and expression so preach on stormtrackers.

In regards to May 2005...this is my first summer in Norman as a college student. I am unemployed at the moment through hastily trying to find a job, and have been free to chase since graduation. Unlike Melissa, I chose to study abroad in England last year, which was a wonderful chase season with numerous outbreaks. I consider an outbreak to be a season where an active dryline exists across several states and supercells develop tornadoes across a broad region. Accoring to my simple definition, this year has had ZERO outbreaks, which I think is more rare than the fact Oklahoma has had just 2 tornado reports.

I can't figure out how to blame the climate either. We are in a very weakly negative ENSO pattern, which means an El Nino, but the only correlation with a climate pattern like El Nino tends to develop split flow across the West. We observed this quite a bit early on in the season in the way of cutoff lows rather than shortwave troughs which typically provide a broad area of southwesterly flow. So early on in the season, we were dealing with backed mid-level flow, which typically favors more linearly organized storms, while we chasers prefer supercells. There were a few gems however, so it wasn't a complete wash. My best chase was April 11, the storm that went right through Norman, which isn't something to boast about.

Since then, I have dealt with several cap busts on decent setups including May 11, the one day an outbreak looked feasible across the TX panhandle, W KS, and W NE. I flew out to Shamrock, or Scamrock after a 1:30 pm final to find a receding dryline and dying Cu.

This I can only playfully attribute to Global Warming! It's a good thing my attitude in life doesn't depend on how many tornadoes I witness in a given year. There's a lot to be happy and thankful for in all facets of life.
 
Originally posted by Justin Walker
Here in Oklahoma, we have only had TWO May tornado reports. :cry:
Click to expand...

Can someone tell me what day the tornado reports occurred in OK because I just checked the SPC backlog of storm reports and it confirmed what I thought was true, that this May has not seen a single tornado report in Oklahoma...but perhaps I am mistaken?
 
2145 8 N SALLISAW SEQUOYAH OK 3558 9479 RELAYED THROUGH MEDIA OF TORNADO SPOTTED NEAR BRUSHY LAKE. (TSA)
Click to expand...

There's this one from yesterday, but that has been the only one I have been able to find for Oklahoma for this month. Before yesterday, I don't see any tornado reports for Oklahoma on the SPC Storm Reports website since April 21st.
 
This chase season can be either awesome or horrible, depending on your frame of mind, I suppose. Went chasing for the first time this year. Yeah, my first chase was a horrible bust - and it was also the most fun I've ever had in my entire life. Is this me being overly optimistic? Maybe. Is this me being overly enthusiastic? Probably. It was the trip and not the (unfortunate) results that made the chase as much fun as it was. I learned a ton, I got to know some really cool people, it just seems like a win-win situation to me. (I suppose I should point out that on my final chase I did end up seeing a tornado, which was beyond cool, but that's beside the point :)).
"Always look on the bright side of life!"
Sarah
 
Originally posted by Ben Prusia
2145 8 N SALLISAW SEQUOYAH OK 3558 9479 RELAYED THROUGH MEDIA OF TORNADO SPOTTED NEAR BRUSHY LAKE. (TSA)
Click to expand...

There's this one from yesterday, but that has been the only one I have been able to find for Oklahoma for this month. Before yesterday, I don't see any tornado reports for Oklahoma on the SPC Storm Reports website since April 21st.
Click to expand...

I find this one a bit hard to believe as of now....I've yet to see a single legitimate report from an eyewitness or any video. You'd think with the "media" tag on this report, there would be video. I'm also not so sure about the April 21 Ok tornado report; all the chasers I've talked to who were in NE OK that day said the tornado reports were bogus. I guess we'll find out eventually.

This is the second time in three years OK has been flirting with its all-time record low for tornadoes. This certainly won't help the state's reputation of late among outsider chasers. The sleeping giant continues to slumber...
 
I'm not a meteorologist or a climatologist and have no idea what it means, but passing through western Oklahoma and the panhandles earlier this month, it was striking how dead and dry everything looks. I have read that there's a modest seven year drought underway, and what I saw certainly corroborates this idea.

In the Oklahoma panhandle, particularly, I passed over small lakes and reservoirs that were missing entirely--long bridges over acres of dried lake-bed and post-flooded timber.

In the Texas panhandle, the Canadian and Red Rivers are shadows of their former selves.

It was eerie and brought to mind Steinbeck's Dust Bowl era fiction.

AM


Originally posted by Shane Adams+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Shane Adams)</div>
<!--QuoteBegin-Ben Prusia
Click to expand...
2145 8 N SALLISAW SEQUOYAH OK 3558 9479 RELAYED THROUGH MEDIA OF TORNADO SPOTTED NEAR BRUSHY LAKE. (TSA)
Click to expand...

There's this one from yesterday, but that has been the only one I have been able to find for Oklahoma for this month. Before yesterday, I don't see any tornado reports for Oklahoma on the SPC Storm Reports website since April 21st.
Click to expand...

I find this one a bit hard to believe as of now....I've yet to see a single legitimate report from an eyewitness or any video. You'd think with the "media" tag on this report, there would be video. I'm also not so sure about the April 21 Ok tornado report; all the chasers I've talked to who were in NE OK that day said the tornado reports were bogus. I guess we'll find out eventually.

This is the second time in three years OK has been flirting with its all-time record low for tornadoes. This certainly won't help the state's reputation of late among outsider chasers. The sleeping giant continues to slumber...[/b]
Click to expand...
 
Originally posted by Amos Magliocco
I'm not a meteorologist or a climatologist and have no idea what it means, but passing through western Oklahoma and the panhandles earlier this month, it was striking how dead and dry everything looks. I have read that there's a modest seven year drought underway, and what I saw certainly corroborates this idea.

In the Oklahoma panhandle, particularly, I passed over small lakes and reservoirs that were missing entirely--long bridges over acres of dried lake-bed and post-flooded timber.

In the Texas panhandle, the Canadian and Red Rivers are shadows of their former selves.

It was eerie and brought to mind Steinbeck's Dust Bowl era fiction.

AM
Click to expand...

It is kind of weird. Earlier this year, we used up this year's quota of moisture. (Think three days of rain a week for about a month, plus 10 inches of snow in 24 hours). But now everything is bone dry again. I suppose I shouldn't complain too much, because the heat is a "cool heat", as the saying goes. It's easily reaching 100 everyday, but the humidity is so low (12%) that it doesn't feel that bad at all, as opposed to Oklahomans, or Mississippians or Floridians, whose temperatures reach the same heights, but with 50% rh. But I suppose my question (amongst all my rambling) is what creates droughts?
 
What causes droughts?

While "extended periods of subnormal precipitation" would probably not be a satisfactory answer to your question, it is the most generally applicable. The cause of each particular drought, however, is different.

In this particular case (mild to severe drought in most of Oklahoma), I've read numerous complaints here about an unseasonable lack of moisture (unusually low dewpoints) in the southern Plains, which may correlate to relatively low surface temperatures in the Gulf. Some people have stated that frequent frontal passage into the Gulf in winter and early spring is to blame for this. My guess is that unusually frequent tropical weather in 2004 contributed to a cooler Gulf, if only because the 2004 hurricane season was particularly active.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/anal...s/jfmtan.05.gif

The Climate Prediction Center May 17 drought assessment
 
Originally posted by Bryce Stone
What is the record for the lowest number of tornadoes in May?
Click to expand...

In Oklahoma - 2 (1988)
Fewest tornadoes in a year in OK - 17 (1988)
 
IMO it has been a horrible year for most chasers and the stats back it up. When was the last time California had more tornado outbreaks than Oklahoma? I had planned a three week chase vacation for spring of this year since I left the plains last year after the incredible outbreak on the May 29th and 30th. Since I live in Ms and a three week chase will cost a lot of money and I can not justify chasing the early systems this year (none of which even looked impressive) and I took the wait till May philosophy Shane was talking about. I own a business and when I leave for three weeks s*&t hits the fan and causes many problems when I return and cost me thousands of dollars in business. The wait till May philosophy is a must for us chasers that either don't live close to the plains or can't get off work whenever we want so we use the wait till May just to keep the glass half full eventhough it is almost empty. With that said, this year has been great for me! Like I said I live here in Ms and there has been a wealth of chaseable storms in my own backyard! The terrain is horrible outside of the Ms delta but it has still been fun. I did manage to get away with a three day chase that took me across three thousand miles of Ms, La, Ar, Ok, Ks, Ne, and Tx. After a big time bust on May 11th mother nature made up for it on May 12th and put a massive tornado in my lap. I got in the bear cage on the South Plains storm got great footage and watched the entire life cycle from about a quarter mile away, managed to escape with minor hail damage and went home!

I'm still waiting to find another system and setup that is worth driving that far and spending that much money. I no longer have the wait till May philosophy: Now it's wait till June. After a bust season mother nature might just put another unexpected tornado in my lap! Even if the rest of the season is a big ridge of High pressure its fine with me because it's just going to heat the gulf, kill almost all the shear in the carribean and set up a beautiful hurricane season that should stear the storms right to me. Personally as long as I have something to look forward to it makes not having anything to do easy to live with.

For any of you that have not experienced a hurricane it is far more dangerous since your target is actually in the storm, but it is one heck of a ride! Good luck to everyone and hopefully we can talk about how great June of 2005 was in the coming years.
 
I still think the issue here is there are going to be good
years (like last year) and bad years. If you check storm data,
this has always been the case. After a great year everyone thinks
the following year is going to be great. It does not work that way!
You cannot gauge severe weather on a year-to-year basis.

Mike
 
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