State of the Chase Season 2021

Status
Not open for further replies.
Keeping an eye on Thursday and Friday locally here. Thursday features extreme instability, modest low level shear, and a 50 knot 500mb jet max moving into Eastern IA at 00z. While the tornado and supercell parameters are spiking, this definitely reminds me of something that could be a long lived wind event with high instability + shear combo persisting well into the night. Not to say there won't be a couple hours at onset or if we get storms even at all during the day (CIN is high, its Iowa in June lol).

Then watching the front slide south a tad on Friday and pretty much the same setup over IL/IN/MO with extreme CAPE and rather meager low level shear, probably another wind/hail day with the outside chance of a tube if you are very lucky.

Not the best June setup's I've seen, but I could see Thursday turning into something decent if we do get day-time initiation across Central/Northaest Iowa. Probably bite if it looks good since its only a 2 1/2 hour drive or so.

PS I wouldn't discount Wednesday (6/16) across Eastern SD/Western MN either. Could be a late show with a couple supercells evolving into an MCS again. Tis the season! Long range looks like we will have several of these chances coming up into the end of June.
 
Oh yeah @Ethan Schisler those are all local chase days if one lives there. I'd be going to Lieowa on Thursday and try IL/IN Friday. Northern Missouri is quite chasable compared to southern Mo; but as you know, central IL into northwest IN is prime time flat open chasing.

Might get a more robust version early next week, if tropical remnants don't interfere with the wind fields. SPC is feeling it for Sunday Upper Midwest. ECMWF verbatim is Monday on the Indiana Ohio border, which is also a flat open region with good roads. However the good chasing ends farther east.

Finally I managed to jinx Nebraska with my post on Monday. Anything late next week (Days 8-10) now looks like the Upper Midwest on NW flow. The modest Nebraska flow is gone. Still, the state of the North / late season looks good.
 
I'm probably sitting today out. Lack of model agreement on day-time initiation has me on edge for what looks like a 5+ hour drive up to SE MN/SW WI (awful terrain). Tomorrow is looking more interesting locally. Tornado threat is probably brief, but there appears to be a window for significant damaging winds and hail (perhaps some HP storm structure). I'll take that an hour or two from home. See what happens today, if something can fire up within 2-3 hours of home, I'd be game, but right now I'm not liking the prospects. Also the 850mb moisture across much of Iowa is absolutely awful. Go up a couple thousand feet and have a nose bleed lol. Hopefully that doesn't translate into tomorrow. Beyond tomorrow, we have a shot in the Midwest on Sunday and then a cf clears the area for a few days.
 
Maybe the Sunday through Monday trough will be better in the Midwest. Saturday and Tuesday are possibilities back East, but that's only for really local chasing.

Late next week zig zag continues. Nebraska and Kansas are back in the game but always Days 7-10. Also need the 700 mb furnace to back off a bit. It tries to fire up again Wednesday.
 
Today is looking much like yesterday locally....poor. Morning round of "rain" has moved through which deposited no more than a trace (I'm at 0.00" for June). We didn't drop much below 80 last night and its very muggy, CAPE is high this morning already, but we have a very strong cap to work through. Need to clear these clouds out so we can get into the mid 90s later to approach convective temps. Even then I have my reserves on if storms form before dark and how severe they are. I think large hail and significant wind gusts are the biggest risks. By 02z when HRRR has cells firing, the amount of CIN that builds in is quite substantial (-150 to -200). Probably more of a lightning op than a real chase.

Fast forward to Sunday and there is a legit warm front setup in the Midwest. High instability coupled with pretty good low level shear along a warm front in Northern IL/Southern WI should yield another chase op. At least this type we have some synoptics to work with and decent mid level flow out of the SW. Its been 3 years since I have seen a tornado in June. Maybe it'll end on Sunday. June used to be my best month, now its July.
 
Well my post last Friday aged very poorly. We had a high end EF1 tornado touch down a couple miles from home base later that evening along with 80-100 mph RFD and then got over 4" of rain on top of that followed by another 1-2" a couple days later and then 2.15" this morning. So that 0.00" for June has quickly been erased and if the models are correct, we could be dealing with a double digit rainfall month (tis the season). Severe potential today appears to be tied to the boundary. I've elected not to chase today because of the likely HP storm mode in poor terrain (NW MO). I may meander down toward Bowling Green/Quincy later on if something looks interesting as things are starting to clear out. Otherwise, today and the next 2 days are going to be mesoscale forecasts for the local area. I do think one of the days (today, Friday, or Saturday) will have the potential to produce a good local severe op.

If I was actively chasing the Plains today, I'd probably target the boundary in Kansas near Marysville and hope you can keep something discrete. CAPE is high here along with high SRH along the boundary (if it lifts that far north) and some backing winds. Probably going to be a lot of quick backbuilding though tonight and flash flooding issues so tomorrow's chase will be even more difficult (and in a lot of the same area).
 
Ethan Schisler said:
Well my post last Friday aged very poorly. We had a high end EF1 tornado touch down a couple miles from home base later that evening along with 80-100 mph RFD and then got over 4" of rain on top of that followed by another 1-2" a couple days later and then 2.15" this morning. So that 0.00" for June has quickly been erased and if the models are correct, we could be dealing with a double digit rainfall month (tis the season). Severe potential today appears to be tied to the boundary. I've elected not to chase today because of the likely HP storm mode in poor terrain (NW MO). I may meander down toward Bowling Green/Quincy later on if something looks interesting as things are starting to clear out. Otherwise, today and the next 2 days are going to be mesoscale forecasts for the local area. I do think one of the days (today, Friday, or Saturday) will have the potential to produce a good local severe op.

If I was actively chasing the Plains today, I'd probably target the boundary in Kansas near Marysville and hope you can keep something discrete. CAPE is high here along with high SRH along the boundary (if it lifts that far north) and some backing winds. Probably going to be a lot of quick backbuilding though tonight and flash flooding issues so tomorrow's chase will be even more difficult (and in a lot of the same area).
Click to expand...
Funny. I’m sitting in Marysville right now waiting for initiation. Thought I’d catch up with the chatter….
 
Actually it went pretty well. Shortly thereafter storms fired just SW of there. After rapid growth, It had a couple of funnels on the warned storm before turning into a big pile of snot. A little less HP would have been helpful, but no real complaints.
The next day or two have some potential and I expect the chaser traffic will be stepped up a bit as it rolls into the weekend👍🏻
 
Jeff Duda said:
With 14 C h7 temps sitting overhead, you might be sitting there for a while. Good luck!
Click to expand...

This post aged well, haha. 😜

@Jason N...I agree that there is no harm in wanting to know. However, the science has not advanced to the point of being able to predict those S2S (seasonal-to-subseasonal) signals with this kind of lead time and still contain reliability. Some of the features you named only evolve on the sub-seasonal scale, and so are not even in the range of useful predictability at this point.

About the only signal you might be able to start looking at is ENSO. Both CPC and IRI provide forecast plumes, but accuracy at this range is probably pretty close to climo, so it won't help much.

IRI – International Research Institute for Climate and Society | April 2024 Quick Look

iri.columbia.edu iri.columbia.edu

Climate Prediction Center - Monthly Verifications

This page displays the most recent verification of the Climate Prediction Center's Monthly Forecasts
www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov
 
You guys keep it real, I appreciate that!. I will say and I think my message was taken a bit on the serious side, It was meant more for grins and a chuckle since this season was certainly below average. Jeff D. Thank you for the IRI link!, I am not familiar with that one. , sorry my humor didn't come across in my previous post. I should have added a laughing face or something, so that is on me.
 
The next 5-10 days here look pretty much about the same every day. Chance of showers/thunderstorms, warm and humid, repeat. The ECMWF has a strong upper level low over the Great Lakes around the 4th of July this year (blocking pattern again) with highs in the 60s and low 70s. So any swimming or recreational activities of such will be put on the back burning (fun).

Could be worse I suppose, could be a 2009 4th of July where its 55 and raining all day and I have to watch the fireworks in my coat and hat with a stiff N wind...

Time to look forward to hurricane season and fall setups I guess. I think anything outside of local setups and mesoscale setups is gonna be all we get over the summer unless something anomalous occurs. I have a trip planned out west in late July for about a week to go camping (SD/WY/MT). So maybe I'll catch something then, who knows.
 
Looking forward to a late chase today around my neighborhood of South and Central Michigan today. We have had soooo much rain in the last 2 days..non-stop that at times yesterday you might want to just kill yourself (joking). Sooo...Good break today to chase. Charts are a mess with decent dews.
Having chased and missed the brief Blissfield tornado on Fathers Night as it got too dark.. and i called off. Looking for earlier chances today into the eve. Fingers X.
 
My recollection with the chicklet plot was its value was to highlight 7-10 day out a possible severe weather event for late fall/winter/early spring, then in the summer it would always be "hot" so it didn't really offer much value.

This year has been totally different, and now look at the latest. Everything has gone dead.

Capture.JPG
 
Starting with the Iowa outbreak on 7/14, activity in the upper Midwest has picked up rather nicely. This also includes our midnight surprise here in southern Wisconsin on 7/28 and another overachiever this afternoon/evening. However I consider this "proper" summer weather for this area so it doesn't really make up for the lackluster May/June. The problem with these summer events is that they are too spur of the moment/mesoscale-driven to really plan for and get pumped for the chase.
 
Based on the GFS/Euro for the next week or so, I'd say there will be several chances again in the Midwest to perhaps even the high plains for chaseable severe weather continuing the pattern of an active August 2021 season. Hard to say what days will do what or if anything at all will happen. This time of year the margin between a big time event and a rainy day with a training MCS is razor thin, so its nothing I'd take to my grave. Although I see signs toward the beginning of September that we will get behind a cold front into a cooler airmass. So probably going to take any chances I can get over the next 7-14 days for chasing.
 
Next Tuesday based off the GFS/Euro would be bliss if we can get dry line storms to fire and sort out all the details. Of course that is a long ways out. But cool season outbreaks of recent years have seemed to reward quite well, although its been a minute since we had one in traditional "tornado alley" (KS/OK/TX/NE region). Would be ironic if one of the best setups of the year happened in mid October lol...
 
Just wanted to toss out a quick message to the group wondering what people are seeing in the upcoming year signals for whether it looks more likely that La Nina will persist, or will it be a Hybrid year? I just took a look at the CPC guidance and have seen their estimates, but I know there are more things that some of you experts out there look at. Thanks!!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

adlyons
State of the Chase Season 2024
6 7 8
Replies
197
Views
14K
Boris Konon
adlyons
  • Locked
State of the Chase Season 2023
13 14 15
Replies
367
Views
47K
Jason N
Jason N
Brett Roberts
2024-03-24 EVENT: TX/OK/KS
Replies
11
Views
864
Andy Wehrle
Andy Wehrle
adlyons
State of the Chase Season 2022
6 7 8
Replies
186
Views
37K
Sam Soud
Sam Soud
JamesCaruso
Chase Season 2022 In Review
Replies
12
Views
3K
adlyons
adlyons
Back
Top