State of the Chase Season 2022

[ScottCurry]

I really wish I could have chased today and tomorrow. Unfortunately the wife had to work, so I was on baby duty. After showing promise a few days ago, Wednesday and Thursday are now very quiet. So the first two days of my Chasecation aren't getting started on the right foot. Thinking about heading to the Twister museum on Thursday and then just hoping for a good Friday through Sunday.

 

[Matt Hunt]

Ugh. Should've gone! Not starting my chasecation off well either, with a poor decision to sit out today (in hindsight, of course). Seems like if I sit out marginal days, something magical happens, but if I chase them, it's all junk and I feel like a fool for driving hundreds of miles and spending hundreds of dollars to watch rain showers. I guess those are the breaks in this game.

Looked to me like outflow from earlier storms south of Lubbock hit that storm near Morton, and it subsequently went nuts. Not sure it would've produced anything otherwise.

 

[Jeff House]

Starting to believe a Northern Plains Upper Midwest sequence is on-tap beginning this weekend. Too good to be true again? Let's look under the hood.

We have reeled it well into the 6-10 day; so, I'm cautiously optimistic. Models smodels, but they are a tool. I look for failure modes, like forecasting snow in the South, haha. Any tropical depression looks buried south Gulf or Yucatan, greater than 15 degrees away from the US trough - no impact if models are right. Probably no TD anyway. Back to the hemispheric pattern forecast; well, it's amazing Rockies trough with Mid-Atlantic ridge.

Looking at the Indian Ocean and Pacific satellite.. MJO and Kelvin Waves are supportive. Pacific jet extension is robust; look for that to poke in North America and retract, yielding the Rockies trough. Global Wind is falling, which is favorable for that pattern in late May early June.

As for the meso-scale and daily details, it's morning of most days. This time of year I'll take broad trough with subtle waves. Boundary forecasting will also be paramount. Forecast dewpoints are quite enough in that part of the World: Northern Plains Upper MW.

Barring a major debacle (which is less and less likely) we are going to tee up a sequence for the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest. Happy and SAFE chasing!

 

[Andrew Butler]

Starting to believe a Northern Plains Upper Midwest sequence is on-tap beginning this weekend. Too good to be true again? Let's look under the hood.

We have reeled it well into the 6-10 day; so, I'm cautiously optimistic. Models smodels, but they are a tool. I look for failure modes, like forecasting snow in the South, haha. Any tropical depression looks buried south Gulf or Yucatan, greater than 15 degrees away from the US trough - no impact if models are right. Probably no TD anyway. Back to the hemispheric pattern forecast; well, it's amazing Rockies trough with Mid-Atlantic ridge.

Looking at the Indian Ocean and Pacific satellite.. MJO and Kelvin Waves are supportive. Pacific jet extension is robust; look for that to poke in North America and retract, yielding the Rockies trough. Global Wind is falling, which is favorable for that pattern in late May early June.

As for the meso-scale and daily details, it's morning of most days. This time of year I'll take broad trough with subtle waves. Boundary forecasting will also be paramount. Forecast dewpoints are quite enough in that part of the World: Northern Plains Upper MW.

Barring a major debacle (which is less and less likely) we are going to tee up a sequence for the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest. Happy and SAFE chasing!

I"ve been too hesitant to say anything for fear of being overly optimistic and waiting for someone with better knowledge to post. Thank you. It's very broad troughing with good mid level winds and all kinds of subtle shortwaves- over sufficient juice and do-able capping. It's been a LONG time since I have seen something this promising up here on models. Just handed in PTO request at work.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Ugh. Should've gone! Not starting my chasecation off well either, with a poor decision to sit out today (in hindsight, of course). Seems like if I sit out marginal days, something magical happens, but if I chase them, it's all junk and I feel like a fool for driving hundreds of miles and spending hundreds of dollars to watch rain showers. I guess those are the breaks in this game.

Looked to me like outflow from earlier storms south of Lubbock hit that storm near Morton, and it subsequently went nuts. Not sure it would've produced anything otherwise.

I feel bad for suggesting to you on Saturday that it wasn’t worth it… But as Warren noted, the outlook for Monday did improve on Sunday… Even still, I probably would not have made the drive from Idaho, I was already on chase vacation and coming from Colorado…

I did end up on the Morton tornado, although nowhere near as close as the pictures posted above… Will post a full account in the Reports section when I have time.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Looks like @Jeff House beat me to it, but there is an encouraging sign on the horizon from the MJO phase diagrams:



A big swing from nothing through phases 6-7-8 looks to be progged starting the next few days. The ideal phase movement is through 8-1-2 to get US severe weather outbreaks, but perhaps the "momentum" of the swing through the upper left quadrant will continue on down and give us a show in June.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Starting to believe a Northern Plains Upper Midwest sequence is on-tap beginning this weekend. Too good to be true again? Let's look under the hood.

We have reeled it well into the 6-10 day; so, I'm cautiously optimistic. Models smodels, but they are a tool. I look for failure modes, like forecasting snow in the South, haha. Any tropical depression looks buried south Gulf or Yucatan, greater than 15 degrees away from the US trough - no impact if models are right. Probably no TD anyway. Back to the hemispheric pattern forecast; well, it's amazing Rockies trough with Mid-Atlantic ridge.

Looking at the Indian Ocean and Pacific satellite.. MJO and Kelvin Waves are supportive. Pacific jet extension is robust; look for that to poke in North America and retract, yielding the Rockies trough. Global Wind is falling, which is favorable for that pattern in late May early June.

As for the meso-scale and daily details, it's morning of most days. This time of year I'll take broad trough with subtle waves. Boundary forecasting will also be paramount. Forecast dewpoints are quite enough in that part of the World: Northern Plains Upper MW.

Barring a major debacle (which is less and less likely) we are going to tee up a sequence for the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest. Happy and SAFE chasing!

SPC seems unconvinced of anything through the weekend. Chances seem to go up beyond that.

 

[ScottCurry]

Alright, leaving for my Chasecation on Wednesday. Since there's no chance of anything until Saturday, I'm going to go visit the World's Largest Easel and the World's Largest Ball of Twine. Then on to the Twister Movie Museum. Then I'll get in position for whatever happens on Saturday. I can't change my dates again, so I've just got to make the best of the time I've got. There is a very small chance for something to improve in Oklahoma on Friday, so I'm saving the Twister Museum for Friday just in case the models improve.

 

[Matt Hunt]

I feel bad for suggesting to you on Saturday that it wasn’t worth it… But as Warren noted, the outlook for Monday did improve on Sunday… Even still, I probably would not have made the drive from Idaho, I was already on chase vacation and coming from Colorado…

I did end up on the Morton tornado, although nowhere near as close as the pictures posted above… Will post a full account in the Reports section when I have time.

No worries, James! It was my decision! And I had to make it by Saturday night since it was so far. I still think minus that outflow boundary hitting that storm, the larger scale environment was marginal for tornadoes. Nonetheless, another factor in my decision was the possibility of Northern Plains chase days this weekend, and that does look to be coming together! I went to Yellowstone yesterday, and heading to ND today, so I will already be in position for a marginal day Friday, and then follow it east to the upper Midwest. I'm excited to chase up here for the first time!

 

[Matt Hunt]

SPC seems unconvinced of anything through the weekend. Chances seem to go up beyond that.

That changed quite a bit with today's outlook

 

[Brett Roberts]

In keeping with the seasonal trend of capping problems, I suspect our collective mood over Memorial Day weekend will hinge greatly on whether the incoming longwave trough can eject somewhat cleanly into the Plains, rather than getting held up over the Great Basin for several days and then shunted off to the NE.

Many of us spend the offseason yearning for stretches of subtle southwest flow ala this upcoming Sat-Sun 5/28-5/29. The problem here may be prohibitive 700-800 mb temperatures, confirmed by a glaring lack of warm sector QPF for this weekend in the ensembles. Saturday looks to offer the better chance of warm sector CI, but moisture will still be recovering, especially in NE where the only decent QPF signal exists. By Sunday, current progs have rising heights through the day and little indication of storms, other than north of the surface front.

To me, our best hope is for the Mon-Tue period to trend just a bit more progressive over the CONUS, in which case we could net a legitimately exciting setup. NWP trends yesterday looked grim, but today's 12z suite seems to be leaning back in a positive/progressive direction. Watching the wave train evolve over the next 7 days on the models suggests this whole period may be very sensitive to small perturbations early in the period. If the ridiculous upper low currently parked over the SGP could just kick out faster, we'd probably be looking at a really interesting stretch of several days. On the other hand, there are still plenty of model runs and ensemble members indicating that energy from this upper low will break off and ride anticyclonically all the way around the eastern U.S. ridge into the Gulf by Mon-Tue, which would probably be disastrous thereafter. As it that isn't enough, the ECMWF and its ensembles are now trending toward tropical development in the Gulf during the first few days of June, which concerns me a lot more than the GFS fantasycanes we saw earlier in May...

 

[Warren Faidley]

Looking like some type of possible dryline action early next week. Monday and / or Tuesday could be another sneak attack day if RH makes it's way north in time. Wednesday + looking interesting.

 

[Nick Moir]

Landed in Dallas from Sydney , Australia late Sat afternoon. Haven't been able to get over the last couple of years. I am going to play in the Tex panhandle on monday afternoon. I would be guessing with the drought conditions that a bit of a haboob might be on the cards. HRRR and NAMNEST have plenty activity though nothing particularly decent on the helicity tracks. im here for a couple weeks so ill take everything offered. Im not really a fan of chasing the hill country in far south Texas unless desperate so ill ignore the slight zone.
Awesome to be back for my 7th US chase.

Well
Things went well for me. just kept dropping south on each of the cells as they all looked like they wanted to hook when they had the tail end position and then bingo.

 

[Jeff House]

Congratulations @Nick Moir and welcome back! I'll buy some AUD/USD tonight, ha. OK back on topic..

SPC concedes Saturday could be an MCS mess. Might be a short window early; however, we are leaning travel day only. Sunday offers a conundrum. GFS is rising heights cappo. EC has a little wave; and therefore, a better set-up. Should we be encouraged the SPC seems to have gone with the EC?

Monday and Tuesday indeed the main trough comes out, hopefully gradually so it's two full days. Shortwaves welcome each day. Main trough, please don't pop out like a water melon seed.

Appears the Plains could come up with one more accidental day on Wednesday. Like the day before the day, sometimes we get southern High Plains day after the day.

 

[Dean Baron]

I'm a bit shocked at the lack of talk about the northern plains in here. As much as I like how much less crowded the roads are up here compared to the central and southern plains, I feel like I need to mention that the northern plains has great terrain and offers some great storms (despite the busts up here the last couple of weeks). This weekend looks like it'll have some decent chances up here. For anyone on a chase vacation, it is probably worth the time to venture north for what could be a multi day stretch.