State of the Chase Season: 2017 Edition

[Jeff House]

Would not be the first early May lull. Some have been followed by good late May chasing. However my early season optimism is fading. Might be another season in which one has to carefully pick the set-up.

A month ago the atmosphere seemed locked in a trough west ridge east pattern. La Nina forcing was lingering though SSTs have been trending toward weak El Nino for a couple months. Complete ENSO now shows signs of the El Nino shift. A particularly fast transition to El Nino can move us toward a choppy pattern like this weekend.

Arctic blocking and -NAO are not helping through the 10-15 day forecast. If that breaks down we might be able to get another good West trough later in May. Per TNI (transition from La Nina to El Nino) some years can still yield set-ups after La Nina fades. Just need El Nino to slow its roll a bit.

 

[Devin Pitts]

Definitely keeping my eye on Sat/Sun for IL. While things are still looking quite a bit messy I still think it has potential. Biggest issue is probably going to be avoiding flooding if anything chaseable does pop up.

 

[chrisbray]

Now that this system is about to wrap up and nothing to show for it....we have at least a week of nothingness. And the GEFS/GFS/ show a brutal pattern after that, while the CFS shows a death ridge...

 

[Eric Bucsela]

Don't despair, 12z GFS shows a nice chase day shaping up May 12 lol.

Very slightly more seriously, NCEP ensembles do hint at some troughing in the SW during the second week of May.

 

[Jeff Duda]

The month of April 2017 is going to go down not only as totally pathetic, but as my first chaseless April since I started chasing in 2008 (was also busy with school then, so I really didn't even look at events then).

 

[Jamie G Cox]

Don't worry, the second half of May will be great. I really enjoy your new title Jeff lol.

 

[Tim Paitz]

Don't worry, the second half of May will be great. I really enjoy your new title Jeff lol.

It goes perfectly with April for the most part.


Yeah, the GFS is hinting at western troughing around the middle of May.

 

[Stan Rose]

well one of the main reasons I quit my NWS job was to be able to chase this season without being stuck at work, so y'all can blame me for the miserable lack of setups in the coming days...

 

[Warren Faidley]

well one of the main reasons I quit my NWS job was to be able to chase this season without being stuck at work, so y'all can blame me for the miserable lack of setups in the coming days...

That is total devotion! I see a Campo in your future.

Seriously, I don't see any tornado RH making it's way back north until after the first week in May. This front buster pattern is very annoying. I'd have to look at my notes, but I do remember multiple season over 30 years when this set-up wrecked the first or even second week of May.

 

[Chris Hayes]

Many on here weren't chasing back in 2004. 2004 was a rather slow year with not many setups. On May 12th, there were a couple of supercells producing photogenic and strong/violent tornadoes in Harper County, Kansas. From that day on, it was off to the races with a number of big days on May 22, 24, 29, 30, and June 11, 12. I'm not saying this will be the same. I have some doubts. But slow years can turn around really quick and remarkably. There are things I look at that give a hint as to what kind of pattern we'll be in such as precip forecasts on the CFSv2 computer model. That model is consistently painting a wet pattern for the plains during May and the first half of June. No way of knowing if it means chaseable setups, but it doesn't mean a death ridge either. First week of May will more than likely be a bust, but I'd keep any eye on week 2 and there after.

 

[JamesCaruso]

...slow years can turn around really quick and remarkably. There are things I look at that give a hint as to what kind of pattern we'll be in such as precip forecasts on the CFSv2 computer model. That model is consistently painting a wet pattern for the plains during May and the first half of June. No way of knowing if it means chaseable setups, but it doesn't mean a death ridge either. ...

Agreed. 2013 was a year that quickly turned around for the last two weeks of May; although I was beset by plenty of bad luck and bad decision-making, it was probably the greatest volume of good chase days in a two week period that I can remember since I started chasing in 1996 (at least insofar as the luck of the draw on my annual two-week chasecation). As long as there is no death ridge, it's hard to imagine not having chaseable setups once the instability of late May / early June arrives; even without good synoptic patterns, there are plenty of favorable mesoscale setups to be had.

Chase vacationers like me see things much more differently than chasers that live on the Plains. For me, it's the luck of the draw; I can get a good two weeks in a bad season, or a bad two weeks in a good season. I know lots of Plains chasers didn't think 2013 was a great season precisely because all of the season's activity was condensed into just a two week period. Sometimes I have a little flexibility in when to chase and I then try to time the start of my trip with a week that looks favorable (in that scenario, the second week is still a crapshoot, but that's better than both weeks being a crapshoot...) This year, I am pretty much locked in for 5/26-6/10. I always feel like it's very unlikely that the entire season is consistently good. When it's active in early May I always assume it won't sustain itself into late May and early June. Maybe this is just anecdotal with no statistical basis, but selfishly I would rather see a slow start to the month so that there is still hope for the later weeks of the peak season.



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[Ethan Schisler]

First couple weeks of May look pretty dead to me. Blocking and then northwest flow look to scour out our moisture. Not too surprising given the active pattern we have been in for the past month and a half. I think things will pick back up toward the end of May similar to what we have seen in 2013 and 2016. So that will be something interesting to look for. Just because we are going into May and its quiet, doesn't really mean anything. It only takes a solid week or two of chasing to make an entire season....as we saw last year.

 

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, the first week of the month is going to be dead, but I'd start watching the second week there after. The CFS hints at it getting at least a little more active in that time period. But yeah, and entire season can be made in just a couple weeks. 2004, 2008 (to a degree), 2013, and 2016 have shown that. Even 2011 if you're a plains chaser. But with how everything has been predominantly in the south, I really wouldn't be surprised if the southern and central plains season stretches into June. It's happened before. Most notably in 1995.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Yeah, last night's 0z CFS gives me some hope for the 3rd week of May. Shows a return to western troughing and lots of pretty colors on the SCP map. Now to see if it was a one-run wonder.

 

[Dan Robinson]

There is always an omega block or ridge at some point during a season. It is *optimal* to see it in late April/early May! Blocking patterns rarely last more than 10 days.