State of the Chase Season 2025

[Warren Faidley]

The only problem with these cut-off lows are the cloud cover and grunge they can bring before, during and after the event, effectively killing a 4-5 day period. Still too early to even guess what will happen.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Spent some time with the Euro and GFS this morning, looking at the period 5/1-5/6, which is the first period I could potentially be on the Plains. My goal was to work remotely for as much of May and the first week of June as possible. Unfortunately, I have quite the "Swiss cheese calendar," mostly due to family commitments, and this first window is pretty short. That makes the bar high for it to be worth the time, money and inconvenience of traveling back and forth.

Sadly, it does not look good. At this range I like to stick with big-picture pattern recognition and keep things simple with a look only at 500mb flow and surface dewpoints. Both are meager through most of the period, with the possible exception of Monday 5/5, but even then the 500mb flow is meridional due to the closed low. For 5/5, moisture remains meager on the Euro; the GFS brings the moisture much further north, and there could be some TX PH opportunity if you're not troubled by the meridional flow; hodographs still look decent.

Clearly not worth the trip for me with just one (possibly) decent day on Monday 5/5. Another consideration is that I have to be home by about 4pm on Wednesday 5/7, meaning I really need to fly home on Tuesday 5/6, which could limit my range on Monday and/or burns another PTO day on Tuesday 5/6 to drive to the nearest airport.

Although I have the ability to work remotely instead of boxing myself into a two-week chase vacation, it just puts me in the position of a local chaser, still having to worry about conserving PTO. I am basically reallocating my usual two-week chase vacation (10 PTO days) over a longer period. While this should increase the opportunity to be on the Plains for the better days, it also means I can't chase everything and have to forego the lesser setups. Monday 5/5 is definitely a "lesser setup" at best and not worth using PTO for that as well as the travel time.

My next window is 5/13-5/21, so that's a little longer and the bar won't be quite as high for me, but I'll still have to be conscious of not using too much PTO ahead of my "core" longer trip from 5/24-6/8. I'm just hoping the activity holds out. With my luck the best storms will be from 5/21-5/23, when I have to be back home for my son's college graduation (the CFS chiclet chart seems to indicate that's a possibility! )

I'm actually a bit glad that this first week of May doesn't look too good. The worst is when it's uncertain, leading to tortured decisions. I'm at peace turning my back on this particular stretch, and can double-down on work in the hopes of clearing the decks as much as possible for when I do go out. Also easier on "appearances" at work to be out there fewer days.

If the 5/13-5/21 stretch does not look good, then that leaves 5/24-6/8, which I would probably take as a more traditional chase vacation with full PTO, if I haven't used any time before then. There are advantages to that method, compared to the "limbo" of trying to juggle work and chasing over a prolonged period, and having to take time off on short notice, which tends to draw unwanted attention...

EDIT: I had a couple of my dates/days off, corrected that and some of the related narrative...

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

I looked over 30 years of tornado data when planning my chase trip with my Dad and the 24th of April - May 7th suggested this was a very active period with a lot of high intensity tornado's.

Needless to say, I don't feel like it's been as active this final week [or two] of April this year as it has in recent years past.

We did miss a tornado Saturday in Roswell because of a dumb decision and another Sunday in Hyannis/Ashby because of reluctance to chase in the Sandhills. (Learned from those mistakes and wont make them again. You have to take advantage of opportunities when you're presented with them, especially when you only have so many days to chase. We are now on a third consecutive day in a 10.5 day chase tour without structure, tornado or funnel and it's demoralizing).

 

[Jason N]

I wouldn't stress it Hannah. Learning experiences are all beneficial, especially when there is no cost to them. you'd rather learn from an experience like. road network choices, regional or local visibility, and miss, than be stuck with potentially an ugly consequence. Even the best chasers make the wrong choice sometimes, or nature and chaos are in control in even the best setup situations, but I can fully understand that sinking feeling when the universe just lines up against you sometimes when you spend time, effort, money and not even get structure.

I personally believe chasing is basically going to Vegas. you're going out with the expectation to lose money, and hope betting on red or black brings home the show. it's what you do in between that makes not winning, worth it. To some people, just being there is worth it when you can visit places, have fun restaurants or sites to visit pictures to take, exploring new areas you haven't been to. Others are purely into it for money and clicks, others balance work/family and have limited time so the internal stress of going out and banking everything on it with no wins, forces them to quit. I think we all want good outcomes when we plan, save, in order take the limited time to go out for the chase, so you're justified in your feelings. The good thing is, you're spending time with your dad and collecting those memories regardless... it's a win no matter what the outcome.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Will be 100% ready to deploy by Thursday if needed. We have officially entered "sneak attack" mode for 2025. Forecasting requires very careful examination of localized possibilities. For example, I'd be watching the MAF region this Friday and more so, on Sunday. Next week is still in flux and could go big or go home. Not sure I'd want to play the MAF card this weekend only to have next week go dud.

 

[JamesCaruso]

I did notice that Warren, and I might make a different decision if I could stay out there, but I think you would probably agree it’s not compelling enough to head out just for that, if I need to return on Tuesday. I could still make a different decision by Thursday and fly out Thursday night if things start looking better. But even in that scenario I’m still hesitant to use up a couple PTO days this early, with one of them being just for travel. On the other hand, there’s always the risk that there won’t be more later on, but it’s too soon to start worrying about that; I don’t think I’ve ever gotten out there this early in my whole chasing career.

 

[Brett Roberts]

A trend I just noticed on he latest Op and Ens runs- On Sunday, the upper trough is too far west for enough forcing for daylight storms, then it ejects with poor timing, resulting in the storms shifting way east, and worse, it comes out with a positive tilt. Probably fretting too much but still...

Isn't it maddening how often a simple, clear-eyed assessment like this from 7 days out ends up being more prescient than all the chatter, stress, and sleep-deprived hauls between targets that follow?

I have lots of mixed feelings, both on what's just transpired and what's to come. The pre-show last week was quite a treat for this early in the season, between the location and storm motions. The main show was about as demoralizing as they come, minus Cherry County on Sunday evening. Absolutely incredible moisture in place beneath good (Mon) to amazing (Sun) shear profiles... all for naught. Sweep it down into the Gulf this weekend and start over, like it never happened.

The drought situation heading into May is better than I could've dreamed a few weeks ago. Most of the southern Plains chase alley (OK, TX, E NM) has been completely drenched over the past week, and OKC is working on its wettest April on record. KS also received some significant help, enough to bring YTD totals into the normal-ish range, albeit with some remaining problem areas (SW KS into the OK PH). CO, NE, and north remain droughty for now, although further improvement is possible with the next trough this weekend into next week. All in all, my expectation from late winter that peak season would be substantially hampered by drought-enhanced PBL mixing has aged like milk. We're really catching a break, relative to so many other weakly cool ENSO seasons in recent decades.

I still have significant concerns going forward, though. S2S model output from pre-season, and continuing to present in the ECMWF weeklies, has had a consistent signal for the mean 500 mb pattern in May/June to feature a west coast trough displaced about 5-10 degrees farther west than we'd want... with another trough along or just off the east coast. In between, there's at least modest mean ridging over the High Plains in much of this guidance. It doesn't seem great that the current system's evolution reflects that mean pattern to a tee: it looked incredible 1-2 days too early with the trough axis centered over CA/NV, then sheared out as slop over the Rockies. And, what do you know? It looks like some version of the same playbook for the next major system this weekend... where if you just shifted everything east even 3-5 degrees, you'd have a multi-day High Plains bonanza. I hate to go there, but this pattern with big incoming west coast systems continually getting "stuck" and then filling reminds me a lot of late season 2020.

But who knows. Will there be at least one or two systems that can eject more cleanly into the Plains at some point this season? Probably. If there aren't, or they're mis-timed yet again, the past few weeks' widespread deluge may be our savior and open the door to overperforming "finesse" setups in marginal flow. And that's a lot better than counting on marginal flow when everything from the Rockies to I-35 is a tinderbox.

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

Will be 100% ready to deploy by Thursday if needed. We have officially entered "sneak attack" mode for 2025. Forecasting requires very careful examination of localized possibilities. For example, I'd be watching the MAF region this Friday and more so, on Sunday. Next week is still in flux and could go big or go home. Not sure I'd want to play the MAF card this weekend only to have next week go dud.

What is the MAF?

 

[Jason N]

I believe it's the Midland Aerospace Port in Texas, which covers a wider area to Odessa Tx as well. but there is more than one reference for MAF. I'll stick with that until told otherwise lol. ( guesstimate below)

 

[Jeff House]

Chase Season still looks fine, despite the lack of a textbook trough. Like Brett said, Cherry County blossomed quite well!

Similar to James I'm a scratch the next several days. Mesoscale days are possible after Thursday, and may get going early next week. It's another southern stream bowling ball. While they have risks of getting sloppy some days, they can produce - especially later in May. I one of those mid-May 3-4 years ago kicked out a couple days of photogenic tornadoes.

At the very least, more rain in Texas helps the season overall. Some hints of a blocky northern stream are forecast next week through May 10 but the southern stream has opportunities. That ridge look North is not really a death ridge with below normal heights South. In a month we don't want that for late season. Right now it's fine, through mid-May for the Southern Plains.

Finally most people consider the peak of chase season the 2nd half of May and first half of June, with a super-peak the last third of May. While April has its big outbreaks, chasable tornado clusters and total tornado minutes peaks much later in the season. Jim Tang did a detailed analysis for US Tornadoes. Article includes robust methodology. Here is a summary or conclusions, then the link.

• Tornado day concentrations actually max out in June.
• If we weigh the 60-119 and 120+ minute clusters more heavily, those max out in late May.
• From the rolling sum graphs, the lower-size groups increase linearly from April-June, peaking in late June. That peak shifts towards May as the sizes increase. Part of this is due to larger clusters masking out smaller clusters in May. But part of this is due to the fact that in May, the average tornado event is bigger, even if there are fewer total events compared to June.
• April sucks for chasecation across the board. The frequency of higher-end events on the Plains in April is less than that of early June. The frequency of all events is much less.

When is the best time of year to schedule a storm chasing vacation? - ustornadoes.com

Chasing prizes often come down to persistence, but there are ways to play the odds.

www.ustornadoes.com

 

[Warren Faidley]

What is the MAF?

Midland.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Seemingly perfect, dynamic set-ups don't always equal good tornadoes. Last week was OK, but I don't feel I missed anything overwhelming. Large, grey wedges or low contrast cones fading in an out of rain curtains and Godzilla hail swaths are not my thing. There were a few, brief picturesque funnels, but you had to have insane timing to see them. Give me a slight risk Campo day and I'll retire. (Just kidding). As noted, southern stream flow at 30kts will do it, especially if the LLJ kicks in before dark. My rule has been, and always will be, 30+ kts. flow and DP's of 55+ in the western portions of the SP's will often provide favorable results -- especially over saturated landscapes. As Dr. Doswell use to point out, ripples in the southern flow moving out of Mexico are very hard to detect.

 

[JamesCaruso]

I still have significant concerns going forward, though. S2S model output from pre-season, and continuing to present in the ECMWF weeklies, has had a consistent signal for the mean 500 mb pattern in May/June to feature a west coast trough displaced about 5-10 degrees farther west than we'd want... with another trough along or just off the east coast. In between, there's at least modest mean ridging over the High Plains in much of this guidance. It doesn't seem great that the current system's evolution reflects that mean pattern to a tee: it looked incredible 1-2 days too early with the trough axis centered over CA/NV, then sheared out as slop over the Rockies. And, what do you know? It looks like some version of the same playbook for the next major system this weekend... where if you just shifted everything east even 3-5 degrees, you'd have a multi-day High Plains bonanza. I hate to go there, but this pattern with big incoming west coast systems continually getting "stuck" and then filling reminds me a lot of late season 2020.

If I am interpreting this correctly - If the current system’s evolution is a good example of the predicted pattern and repeats itself, I’ll take it… The “big day” (or days) (Sun/Mon 4/27-28) did not materialize this time, but the two or three days prior were the bread and butter of typical late season chasing, despite the lack of photogenic tornados as Warren noted - but these are very rare, and not a prerequisite for a good chase vacation (as evidenced by the reference to Campo, now a 15-year-old highlight that, at least for me, has yet to be replicated, and perhaps never will…). This next system could have been better, despite being closed off and offering meridional flow, if moisture wasn’t being scoured out preceding it.

 

[Sean Ramsey]

As of the end of April, the state of the chase season has been pretty good. Chase days (and tornado days) have been plenty - if you don't mind crisscrossing the country from north to south. The upcoming pattern for the next two weeks doesn't look like there will be anything real obvious, but moisture doesn't appear it will be scrubbed to the gulf (after May 3rd or so) and there are a couple of lows possibly set to come through to provide some opportunity.

Probably wouldn't bank a dedicated trip for it, but if you're already out here my guess is there will be opportunities similar to what we've seen so far for the next couple of weeks. At the very least the rain has been a blessing for this part of the country - sans the flooding that has occurred in certain areas.

 

[Mitch Drabenstott]

There are just so many cutoff lows and little pieces of energy running around the CONUS in the next week that the models don’t really know what to do with them. Each GFS and Euro run has wild swings even past day 5-6. One run will look great and the next will be downright ugly. Ensemble means offer a clue that activity may pick up in the second full week of May (around 5/11-5/13) but with a jumbled pattern like this it’s hard to put any stock into anything long range.