Season over?

[Lanny Dean]

I usually do not respond to these types of threads simply because I find them a little crazy....crazy because it is May 14. The "season" is not even half way over.

I am not sure what you are looking at Brian but the May 25-29th time frame look pretty good to me. Short term, maybe we will see some upslope magic later today and Saturday in west Texas not to mention it is May and anything can happen. Then there will be June and possible upslope action in eastern Colorado/western Kansas as well as our "normal" type events.

Might behoove you, Brian, to take a look at some of the long range model stuff. Keep in mind though that those weather models are just that...long range models...they are far from perfect and basically just kinda give us a guess at what may be coming down the pike so to speak
Good luck!

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Exactly ... and just to put this in perspective a bit ... even on "local" days, a chase to Junction City and back ends up being a MINIMUM of ten hours drive time to and from KC. On Wed, convection went up early (and tornado potential fizzed out early in KS, which means I came home early) ... I left home around 1:00 pm and got home around 11:00 or so ... that's ten hours non-stop driving right there.

Don't worry ... season's just getting wound up.

 

[Danny Neal]

Yes! The season is OVER. All you chasers go ahead and make your plans to leave the country to go on a cruise or something. I'll tell you what. I will stay behind in the plains JUST IN CASE something happens, but it won't, so go ahead and book your flights

 

[Paul Stofer]

Yes! The season is OVER. I will stay behind in the plains JUST IN CASE something happens, but it won't, so go ahead and book your flights

Hmm.. Danny, I'm suspicious your up to something your not telling me.. Oh well, why second guess it.. i'll just book my cruise.

 

[Patrick Martin]

The season is over?! Dangit, I missed that memo!

Seriously, since when does a little downtime or the lack of continuous "classic" setups constitute that the season is dead? Even in a period of strong ridging you can get good upslope storms in NM/CO/WY/SD, and playing the ring of fire around the high can pay dividends. I might suggest reading up on some climatology, forecasting, and model analysis Brian. This chase season is not even close to being over.

My chase partner and I start our chasecation on the 26th, and what looked semi-dismal on the models (for the 1st few days anyway) is now starting to show more promise. And if it requires a 10 hour drive to our target, so be it. It would not be the first time, nor the last.

 

[Brian Davidson]

Didnt do anything? Do you even pay attention to the local news?! That bow echo caused significant wind damage in Olathe, Gardner, and just south of Plattsburg, and you call that nothing? Wow. Not trying to be a jerk, but maybe you should pay attention just alittle bit more if you're so interested in spotting/chasing storms.

I don't watch the news "weather" for two reasons. The first reason is because I can get the weather faster than the general public and the other reason is because I live in a fraternity house where the TV is always on ESPN or MTV or something.

I didn't know it caused wind damage and when I said "nothing" I meant dropping a tornado.

Sorry

 

[Rob H]

I've had a great year so far so I'm looking forward to some downtime with the family, chase vehicle electrical work, etc. Being from Minnesota it's been rather annoying driving down to OK/TX for every setup, so I'm more than happy to have things shift north in a few weeks. Things also seem to be delayed as others have mentioned. Minnesota didn't have any snow in March or April, but I believe some areas got some last Friday. Weather goes by its own rules, so I wouldn't try to hold it to some man-made schedule.

If you live in OKC and consider your chase bubble to be 100 miles in each direction around you - then yeah, *your* season might be over. Our chase vehicle has put on over 6000 miles this season so far so I don't want to hear any complaints about distance, and I'm sure our European friends would also have something to say about it

 

[Brian Davidson]

Hmm.. Danny, I'm suspicious your up to something your not telling me.. Oh well, why second guess it.. i'll just book my cruise.

faster mobile internet and fast GRlevel3 with no outages? lol

 

[Mark Sefried]

Yep the season is over! Every chaser should give up all hope while the great tornadic supercells come back to the central and northern plains as well as the midwest starting later on in the month and lasting into July. June is my favorite time of year to chase because you get more daylight to chase, the storms move a lot slower, and the chaser heards of may scatter.

 

[Shane Adams]

It never ceases to amaze me how first-year people base their outlooks on computer models they can't possibly understand in their rookie year (how they relate to the real-world, patterns, tendencies, etc etc).

I always harken back to the DEATH RIDGE thread started on this forum May 1, 2004. That was a great laugh.

 

[Brian Moody]

2008, at least in my area, first half of May was kind of a slow month and, to be honest, I thought "well, maybe the season will at least provide a few opportunities before fall." Well, those "few opportunities" included major outbreaks in late May, an EF2 tornado not too far from home and a high-impact wind event.

 

[Verne Carlson]

The season hasn't even begun for the High Plains IMO. We just had another snow storm in Denver this week. June is going to really crank up here in eastern CO. Last year we had slight risks and 5% tornado risk almost everyday through July.

 

[Jeff Piotrowski]

Verne I agree looks like the long range progs has a strong jet in the central pacific in early June. I would expect very active period central and northern plains in the June 1-15 time frame.

Some of my all time best chases are in June- KS, CO, NE, SD, ND, and IA.

The storms speeds are closer to 25 VS 50 so far this spring.

Best advice is to delay your chase vacations until early June time frame.

 

[Joseph Tyree]

This season is far from over.... in fact the latest 12z GFS shows a wave coming into the plains the middle of this next week. This is the first run it has shown anything like this so I don't know how believable it is but its something to watch.

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/namer/gfs/12/images/gfs_300_132l.gif

 

[Chris Hayes]

The 6z and the 12z run of the GFS which is now processing show at least a couple days of chase opportunities possible next week starting possibly on wednesday and possibly lasting into Friday over Kansas and Oklahoma with a trough coming in over the Rockies and slowly moving eastward. Looks to be pretty good moisture advection and a fairly sharp dry line. Time for me to decide is today or tomorrow at the very latest.