June Chasing 2008

[Mike Peregrine]

May is almost gone.

We would all agree that last weekend was an almost unbeatable combination, but I'm sure that there are some out there who would like to keep their eyes forward too.

The next significant trough looks like it could take a while. By Monday, looks like high pressure off the coast of Oregon, with a touch of southwest flow ahead of it ... precip showing up on GFS. Aleutian-Alaskan low can also be seen in the map below.

Wonder if someone with access to more ECMWF data (and meteorology know-how) than I have would be willing to peer into the future and tell us what they see.

 

[Shane Adams]

No clue about what's to come in June, but one of my chase partners and I left the a@# we were working for and started out on our own today. Since there's only two of us, we're making due on smaller side projects, not tied to any one builder (and on their schedule), so we're basically doubling our incomes and getting an even more lax schedule (working for individual owners instead of residential builders). In a few weeks, regardless of the weather, we'll be poised to finally able ourselves to make those long treks up north later into the Spring...so Nebraska and the Dakotas are no problem for us later this month. I'm already having my best season ever, and I'm not gonna stop. I want more and more and more.

 

[Greg McLaughlin]

June has been quite good to me in the past. Its rare to get large tornado outbreaks in June, however localized events are quite common. Some of the best chase days are when the overall synoptic pattern doesn't favor a tornado outbreak, but conditions come together for one or two incredible supercells that become cyclic tornado producers. The May 24 supercell south of Enid is a great example of a great June-like setup. Give me 40-45kts of west or southwest flow aloft over a stalled front or outflow boundary with high instability and I am good to go.

 

[Paul Redmond]

May might have been fun for you, especially this past weekend but for me it was a dud. I was stuck at home with a bad back this weekend taking ibuprofan sitting on ice packs. In fact this spring has been something of a disappointment. My usual chasing grounds in south and central tx have been dry this year. My biggest bust was the HP cell chase in Zavala and Frio counties. I missed the tornadic storm in the same place the next day, not being able to make it there due to work commitments. Sigh!

Its been all far north chases this year with only a few high points. I only have so many vacation days, and 10 hours of driving is tough on the car, never mind me. It looks like all activity has shifted northern planes now, unless I want to chase pulse storms out by fort stockton!! For me fort stockton is about as far away as OK city and with no road network to speak of.

 

[Derek Weston]

272 (preliminary) tornado reports through the first week and a half of June...

No, not all terribly chasable... but extremely active.

This is setting up to be a year to remember, me thinks...

 

[Adam Lucio]

Some of the best chase days are when the overall synoptic pattern doesn't favor a tornado outbreak, but conditions come together for one or two incredible supercells that become cyclic tornado producers.

Truer words have never been spoken. I recently got my best footage ever in the southern burbs of Chicago. The pattern that day favored Iowa, and I was mad I couldnt chase it due to oral surgery....but things came together and a lone tornadic supercell formed over northeast IL that spit out 8 tornadoes as it rapidly cycled over and over and over and over.