State of the Chase Season: 2016 Edition

[JamesCaruso]

As per my earlier post, we bailed out on the second week of our chase vacation and left the Plains for home on 5/28, with an expectation of heading back out this weekend. Obviously that's not looking too good either. My chase partner can't go again any later in June, so that might be it for me after all; I would prefer not to chase alone.

We had a good four days including DDC, but at that point we had 10 days left so I thought we were sitting pretty. Little did we know our trip would come to such an early and abrupt end. Even with a day like 5/24, it's still an overall disappointment to not quite be able to scratch that itch that builds up all year long. And the feeling of success with the Dodge storm only lasted about 24 hours because we missed the Salina storm on the 25th...

On the plus side, SPC already has us in a 15% Day 5 risk for Sunday, pretty rare here in the Philadelphia area! ;-)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Manuel Salgado]

I have 11 days starting Friday afternoon to chase. Since the pattern is dead for the first portion, I'm just gonna go visit some national parks and do landscape/nighttime photography instead. I'm really hoping that the pattern will get active again halfway through next week. First time I've ever done an extended period dedicated to chasing like this and then atmosphere just shut it down.

 

[Michael King]

Not really prospects but in retrospect had good times with friends new and old this chase season as a passenger with others leading the way. Kicked off with Wray, Co; saw nice storm in north Ok the day of Katie; got a bonus @ Hollis, Ok on Friday 13 May; saw Felt, Ok; was there @ Spearman, Tx; dodged night tornadoes @ Turkey, Tx; was among throng @ Dodge City; and topped it off with Chapman, Ks.

 

[Robert Forry]

June will be June, and while things tend to slow about the third week, it always pays to be on guard for (as Dan mentions above) the occasional mesoscale accidents (not sure if Pilger and Holdrege classify as that). And I'm sure during the summer months will see events caused by NW flow up out way, and there's always the possible Fall outbreak. Aside from not pulling the trigger for the May 7-9 events, my chase season has been stellar. Been great to be back out there again after some time off.

 

[Royce Sheibal]

For what it's worth, the 12Z GFS looks like June 8th to 15th will be very active across the central and upper plains, and accordingly the CFS guidance dashboard shows a similar blob of doom over that period. You'll have to wait a week for the pattern to reestablish, but it will likely be there, as a repeat of 2014's setup occur. Time to put on your meso-scale hats, gentlemen.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Sooo...active the week before AND the week after my (and my chase partner Nick's) vacation. Nice.

 

[Michael King]

Michael K.------There were lots of crowds on the Chapman tornado-------I drove past several of them.(unless you were being sarcastic).

Not being sarcastic - not many where we were apart from a few vehicles on the road leading down from I70 looking down on the tornado starting. Also, I suppose i am comparing it to the previous day at Dodge City.

 

[Michael Snyder]

Not being sarcastic - not many where we were apart from a few vehicles on the road leading down from I70 looking down on the tornado starting. Also, I suppose i am comparing it to the previous day at Dodge City.

I was watching it cross I-70 from Detroit KS and there were tons of people watching, many locals, but there was a decent share of chasers on it. When that beast started going rain wrapped I was out of there, nope nope nope...

 

[chrisbray]

GFS showing signs of life late next week into next weekend over the past few runs FWIW

 

[JeremyS]

And there's that horrible cut off low in Canada/ eastern US trough again[emoji35]. Time to kill another week of potential chasing in the Plains


Sent from my iPhone using Stormtrack mobile app

 

[Brett Nickeson]

As I feared, the GFS has been trending towards the Euro solution with the trough next weekend being essentially ineffective for the states. The ridge is just too strong and it shoves it north all the way into Canada. From here, the Euro and GFS seem to diverge a bit, with the GFS bringing in a decent trough for June around the 17th-18th timeframe while the end of the Euro run suggest a pretty stout western ridge. Given the fact that I'll be doing some Father's day fishing with my dad on the weekend of the 18th, I'm sure it'll be Pilger II.

 

[Manuel Salgado]

At this rate if I want to do any chasing on this "chasecation" then I'll be headed to Manitoba. It really looks as though this ridge is here to stay.

 

[Ethan Schisler]

I certainly agree. I was somewhat optimistic last week for the trough coming in next weekend, however that has waned recently as models are showing the ridge dominating the Eastern half of the US and the bulk of the best mid-level flow staying west of the Northern Plains and into Canada (no passport :/). In other terms, looks like summer is arriving for many folks and chase season coming to a grinding halt (at least for the mean-time). I'm still keeping my eye out for something in the middle of June (6/15-20ish) if this ridge can buckle and we can establish decent mid-level flow over seasonable June instability in the Northern Plains. Definitely can't rule anything out considering the time of year.

 

[Kevin Walters]

Turn out the lights....the party's over.

 

[Ethan Schisler]

The party's never over in here, always leave a light on