Mark,
There's an upper-level trough east of the location of weak phasing between the two jet streams off the California coast that tries to move eastward across the southern U.S. (north of the subtropical jet) -- see
this graphic (250mb winds), and step through the time slowly. You can see it easily at 500mb too (though be aware of the convective feedback vorticity bomb at 54-78 hours that starts in southern TX and moves into the western GoM). At any rate, this upper-level trough undercuts the ridge and gets "stuck", for all intents and purposes, in the southeastern U.S./northern GoM. The subtropical jet amplifies a bit as large-scale (but relatively low-amplitude) troughing develops in the Gulf of Mexico, and an upper-level ridge amplies across much of the central U.S. downstream of a negatively-tilted shortwave trough that moves northeastward out of the western U.S. trough. These two features (building ridge associated with the polar jet in the central U.S. and a slightly deepening trough associated with the subtropical jet in the GoM) leave the cut-off low to meander somewhere in the northern GoM. Unfortunately, this is a "high over low" block (see
here for 500mb winds and heights valid next Weds morning), and it's certainly not what we want to see this time of year in that part of the country. Though I've linked to the GFS forecast, the recent runs of the ECMWF support the forecast of a cut-off mid-level low slowly retrograding westward next week across the northern/central GoM, with surface ridging extending well into the southern US and northern GoM (see
HERE for 850mb temps and MSLP valid for late next week).
In the low-levels, ridging in the southern US and the northern GoM results in persistent easterly flow across most of the GoM, which keeps the high-moisture air a considerable ways from the Plains. Of course, some modification of the advecting cP air is likely, but the mT air doesn't look like it'll pay us a visit anytime soon. The GFS forecasts the sub-tropical jet to remain rather strong though also rather far south (at least south of Texas), and it has an upper-level trough (associated with the subtrop jet) remaining in the southern GoM and northern Caribbean through Day 10.
I don't think there's too many people in this thread saying that the year is hopeless or will be disappointing entirely. It's a fact that, year-to-date, the tornado count is near a record low (dating back to 1954), and the progs for the next 7-10 days do not bring much reason for optimism. This is NOT to say that there won't be a few relatively low-end chase ops in the next week somewhere across the Plains (more likely in the western high Plains, IMO), but the prospects for a moderate or high-end event appear very unlikely through at least next week. Of course, this means very little for the week after, and nothing for May or June (I'll leave the >7-10 day prognosticating to those who are better with global circulation forecasting), and I (and many of us, actually) have had some extremely good chases on "marginal" days.
NOTE: Links are time-sensitive (at least the CoD ones are, the TwisterData ones might continue to take you to today's 12z GFS).
