State of the Chase Season 2023

Status
Not open for further replies.
FIrst of all, @JamesCaruso you should go North that week. While consecutive days are hard to come by, this is the season for the Northern Plains. When a jet stream remains, vs death ridge, the Northern Plains can be rewarding the entire summer. Bring a passport in case it's Canada. I guess reason for visit is tourism.

Second, my down weeks have come and gone. I actually had a couple in June, one of which lined up with action. I just didn't believe flow would verify. So many years I've seen June flow progged in the 7-10 days bust, or just be Pac NW flow. This year Retro Climo reigns. Agree with @Warren Faidley that it's temporary. We'll leave sticky Climate Change for other threads. For now, just enjoy it!

Third, my perception is this season was actually pretty good - for those with time and flexibility to be in the Plains every week. Chasers with family simply can't do that and that's life. I just give thanks for my single years in the Plains. Regrettably I missed a lot on shift. Whie it is easy to think others have this easy chasing life, I've been really lucky with what I got.

I was off work (and miraculously not on-call) for May 12, 2004 the Harper-Attica show. We caught every tornado of the 3-4 cycles, except maybe the first rope. We saw all the stove pipes, elephant trunks, and columns. May 24, 2008 (the first of 3 great 5/24s) we saw the Kingfisher County, OK show - again all of it except the first elephant trunk. That day was particularly lucky, and cemented my preference for outflow boundaries. WF busted. So we missed Quinter, but we got our show 1-2 days later.

Travel chase era: In 2013 we got everything at Rozel, from the gradual hardening of the mid-levels to the main tornado, the double tornado on cycle 2, and the finesse rope-out. In 2016 we got every cycle of Dodge City. That's the third great May 24, the second being a single cycle in 2010. We blew Chapman, but it does not hurt after getting DDC. About every 4-5 years we get a great show. That trend broke with family, but family brings other wonderful rewards.

So the State of the Season is rocking, if one has time and flexibility. Otherwise, I'm thankful for the big opportunities before. At risk of getting off-topic, I think my post if valid for the mental state of the chase season if one has missed the action. This year has lacked synoptically evident events days out, but patterns have showed up. One just had to believe the flow would verify. Still more chances coming up!
 
I just wanted to chime in and comment about how the season just doesn't want to end. Were are still getting supercells and tornadoes on the high plains with a continuation of nw flow over the plains into the Midwest. This summer has had mid-90's vibes with a seemingly endless season of severe in the plains. I wish I could chase more further west, but work/family obligations have me pretty busy. Curious to see how the fall pans out.
 
I just wanted to chime in and comment about how the season just doesn't want to end. Were are still getting supercells and tornadoes on the high plains with a continuation of nw flow over the plains into the Midwest. This summer has had mid-90's vibes with a seemingly endless season of severe in the plains. I wish I could chase more further west, but work/family obligations have me pretty busy. Curious to see how the fall pans out.

I was thinking the same thing as I saw today’s risk out west (ignoring the risk in my own area of southeastern PA today, which rarely deserves much attention or effort…) I am probably squandering the opportunity I have to work remotely for the first time - I could theoretically be out there, but it doesn’t quite seem worth the effort. Between work travel and a couple separate family vacations, I only have a couple of weeks that I don’t have to go anywhere, and I find myself preferring to stay home when I can, rather than hit the road again… And I have too much work to do and probably shouldn’t be using time to chase even if I was working from out west..
 
it will be interesting to see how this year (as a whole) will pan out with the summer being this active in terms of total numbers. its definitely been what "feels" like a higher than normal mid summer.
 
It's wild to see the western plains continue to churn out incredible chases several times a week all the way into August. If you live out there or have unlimited freedom to chase, this year has probably been the best of your career. If you're like me and largely limited to chases within 5-6 hours of you and live in eastern NE or eastern KS, it's been one of the most frustrating years of your career. This area has been a dead zone going on a decade now. We finally got the incredibly active season we've all been dreaming of, and it's confined to one geographic area at an unconventional time of year lol.
 
It's wild to see the western plains continue to churn out incredible chases several times a week all the way into August. If you live out there or have unlimited freedom to chase, this year has probably been the best of your career. If you're like me and largely limited to chases within 5-6 hours of you and live in eastern NE or eastern KS, it's been one of the most frustrating years of your career. This area has been a dead zone going on a decade now. We finally got the incredibly active season we've all been dreaming of, and it's confined to one geographic area at an unconventional time of year lol.

I'm out of Colorado and this has been an incredible season this year. It's seemed never ending with such active early and late seasons. Record moisture both out West and along the Front Range has been the fairy dust needed to make this year truly special. For a part-timer/opportunistic chaser to hit 20+ tornadoes in a season is a sign of just how unique this year has been for us high-plainers. I'm definitely not taking this for granted, and am trying to savor/make every chase opportunity I'm lucky enough to experience.
 
The pattern has been interesting for sure. Western KS has large areas drought free. I am here in Eastern KS in extreme drought. Ponds are going dry, my neighbor is hauling water to his cattle, hay production 1/2 of normal, etc.
 
when you look at the comparison slider tool on the us drought monitor page from early June to now, you can see where the drought is definitely been cut back in KS/OK but its certainly an interesting shape/pattern that seemed to favor OK Wrn KS. Nrn TX during this past quarter while at the same time places like IN/OH/PA/NY have quickly caught up during that period. Certainly a bit of good news at least in the next 5days showing some high QPF totals over Ern KS. anything at this point will be a blessing for the cattle and tributaries/lakes that need it.
 
I saw some posts about the fall or 3rd peak of the season happening now and I wondered if anyone had any analogs or data on Fall season chasing patterns tied to La Nina / El Nino .. seems like there's been a nice trend as of recent, so it made me wonder what you all have seen in the past as I am not typically accustomed to chasing in the Sep/Oct time frame. Granted a short-term weather pattern is what it is, but I was thinking more from the climo perspective. This is one thing I did see from the SPC.
 

Attachments

  • OCT.png
    OCT.png
    96 KB · Views: 0
Reviving this thread to share some early verification of the seasonal forecast. I had called for an above-average season focused over the Midwest mostly banking on an active March. This part did work out with several big days early in the season including the March 31st Outbreak. But, the rest of the year proved elusive and my overall tornado count was a big miss. April was below average despite a strong start. Late-season cold and a poor pattern with numerous cutoff lows and northwest flow limited severe potential beyond the two weeks or so. A very interesting trend has emerged with May. This has been a recurrent issue in the past several years. While there were still a few events, we fell below average missing almost 100 more tornadoes than normal. This is now the 4th below-average May in a row. The last active May was 2019. I didn't end up running the stats for June since I didn't include it in the forecast but it was quite active.


MonthTornado Count1992-2022 AvgForecastResult
March20691Above AverageHit
April147184AverageMiss
May172270AverageMiss
MAM Total:525545Above Average (775)Miss

I've also picked up on some of the spatial verification. The Midwest, Dixie, and the High Plains show up nicely here with large positive standardized anomalies. The central and northern Plains along with central TX had a quiet year. Im looking to do more verification as the full set of storm data is finished later this year. Ill also plan to spin up a new thread for 2024 in January. There will be some more in-depth verification in there. Hopefully, next year's forecast goes a bit better :)


1700701175146.png
 
Andrew, I didn't take the time to go back and refresh the methodology on this, but are the plotted values standardized anomalies or raw tornado counts?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top