State of the Chase Season 2024

Something that seems different to me about this year is the seasonal SGP dryline is more robust this year. Tighter spatial moisture gradient, and it's there almost every day. But we're running into issues with it being capped and getting no sustained convection off it. In recent years it seemed the dryline was much more diffuse.
 
Starting to look ahead toward the fall season and any sign of the jet's southward migration. Nothing showing in the long ranges yet, with the ensemble mean keeping the main southern stream up in the northern Plains. Moisture across the bulk of the Plains/Midwest isn't shown recovering any after the bowling ball trough in the east pushes the big cold front to the Gulf this weekend. Looks quiet on all chase op fronts for early/mid September.
 
I don't know if it's gonna be talked about here or already has been on other chats elsewhere, but I have to admit, I am staggered at the overall season. There was plenty of talk about an active to above average season., but man, I had thought, 2011 is gonna be a little tough to beat, but its been pretty amazing to see.
 
Deterministic models and ensembles seem to agree on quite an active pattern ahead, with multiple longwave & shortwave troughs traversing the continental US over the next 10 days. Multiple days of severe (or lightning at minimum) potential in the Plains and potentially Midwest is apparent as strong southwest flow overspreads surface moisture and instability. Not any slam-dunk blockbusters showing in there so far, but not really any huge moisture-scouring cold fronts shown either. It looks like a bona-fide "second season" of a type I can't recall seeing very often in the past.
 
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Deterministic models and ensembles seem to agree on quite an active pattern ahead, with multiple longwave & shortwave troughs traversing the continental US over the next 10 days. Multiple days of severe (or lightning at minimum) potential in the Plains and potentially Midwest is apparent as strong southwest flow overspreads surface moisture and instability. Not any slam-dunk blockbusters showing in there so far, but not really any huge moisture-scouring cold fronts shown either. It looks like a bona-fide "second season" of a type I can't recall seeing very often in the past.

It's a little late now, but I keep meaning to share content from the UKMO here, because some of the deep dive weekly videos are really interesting for pure weather buffs.


This should start at 23:11 and the next 10-15 mins goes through the Madden-Julian Oscillation and how it has caused the ripples in the jet stream, which has led to the troughs traversing the United States.
 
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