State of the Chase Season 2026

[William Monfredo]

My state of the chase season includes my chasing partner hopefully able to participate more this year than last.
It helps me a great deal to have a second set of eyes on the roads and sky. Think so?

When I mentioned La Niña & dry conditions and that we’d be “dancing with the one that brung us,” the retort was, “But, what if there’s no band?”
I laughed and said, “Yeh, maybe the equipment truck will break down.”

Band or not, we’re living in amazing times to be a weather geek. It’s not just the anomalous ridge and heat in the West.
On 03/24/2026, Juneau, Alaska broke its seasonal snowfall record, with more than 201.2 inches, 16.7 feet, at JNU.
That same day, Vostok Station, Antarctica recorded a temperature of -105.5° F, the coldest temperature ever recorded globally in March.

 

[Boris Konon]

Saw this post recently.
Numerical weather models are projecting huge westerly wind burst signal
over the west Central Pacific over the next few weeks, some AI models are
projecting signals that would achieve near record intensity.

The westerly wind burst projected is as zonally and meridionally broad as
any historical event I recall, and becomes better centered on the equator
than the comparable event of March 1997.

1997-1998 ended up super El Nino, and big WWBs are a tell-tale sign a sig El Nino is imminent.
Not so good chase season 1997, except for those 3 days at the end of May in OK/TX.

 

[John Farley]

Saw this post recently.
Numerical weather models are projecting huge westerly wind burst signal
over the west Central Pacific over the next few weeks, some AI models are
projecting signals that would achieve near record intensity.

The westerly wind burst projected is as zonally and meridionally broad as
any historical event I recall, and becomes better centered on the equator
than the comparable event of March 1997.

1997-1998 ended up super El Nino, and big WWBs are a tell-tale sign a sig El Nino is imminent.
Not so good chase season 1997, except for those 3 days at the end of May in OK/TX.

Slightly off-topic, but I would certainly take a super El Nino if it lasts well into next winter. If that happens, it could bring a big reversal from what happened this winter in the Southwest, making for a break in the Colorado River basin water crisis and a far better ski season next year than this year. So regardless of the somewhat uncertain effects of an El Nino on the chase season (and this one actually looks a little late for any effect, if it does come to fruition), I would be happy to see a strong El Nino next fall and winter.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Kinda frustrating seeing this EHI prog for Monday and realizing it's likely all going to waste because of ironclad capping or astronomical T/Td spreads.

 

[William Monfredo]

Precipitation anomalies the next couple weeks shows where the necessary convective events, w/some severe by association, might occur.
Of note...a wet Texas. I'm wondering about next weekend and possibly getting out. I don't think I've heard a rumble of thunder yet this year.

 

[William Monfredo]

Today, I was contemplating the possibility that one area of the country might end up with an unusually high frequency of tornadoes this year contrasted with another region with an abnormally low count, as sometimes happens. Just food for thought.

While I would not want to shoehorn meso- and micro-scale phenomenon into synoptic- & planetary-scale processes, I couldn’t help but muse that the Rossby wave pattern & positions have led to some highly contrasted conditions in the US. For example...

Fairbanks, Alaska experienced its coldest winter on record, but Phoenix, AZ & Albuquerque, NM had their warmest. On the other side, the winter registered abnormally cold in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic & Northeast, with Rhode Island setting a state record for their greatest 24-hour snowfall.

So, there’s this whole compensation thing going on, winners and losers, with the opposite events happening elsewhere from where the other situation’s occurring. Might it be like that for this year’s severe storm & tornado season?

 

[Brett Roberts]

There've been several junk early season OK/TX events that got me out the past 6 weeks simply because they were so close by, and I have approximately 3 throwaway marginal structure photos to show for those. But today's 12z model suite suggests the first potential on the S Plains that's genuinely intriguing roughly covering the period 4/11-4/13, with the primary focus currently on Sun 4/12.

There's still a lot of run-to-run variability and disagreement between modeling centers, so I don't have high confidence that a good chase day will emerge yet. But at least the synoptic pattern with long wavelengths is what you want to see for respectable early season potential. The other key ingredient in the early season is extended return flow preceding a potential event; that looks more borderline here, with NW flow aloft over the region as late as Thu. The N/NW flow still seen over the GoM even on the day-of images below is probably a signal that moisture is likely to be a limiting factor for whatever materializes this weekend, even if it's ultimately sufficient for some tornadoes.

 

[Luke Penney]

In the models, mid-April has had some promise in the upper Midwest for a while, and today ECMWF and GFS look very similar for the 13th, with a nice-looking shortwave trough.

 

[JamesCaruso]

There've been several junk early season OK/TX events that got me out the past 6 weeks simply because they were so close by, and I have approximately 3 throwaway marginal structure photos to show for those. But today's 12z model suite suggests the first potential on the S Plains that's genuinely intriguing roughly covering the period 4/11-4/13, with the primary focus currently on Sun 4/12.

There's still a lot of run-to-run variability and disagreement between modeling centers, so I don't have high confidence that a good chase day will emerge yet. But at least the synoptic pattern with long wavelengths is what you want to see for respectable early season potential. The other key ingredient in the early season is extended return flow preceding a potential event; that looks more borderline here, with NW flow aloft over the region as late as Thu. The N/NW flow still seen over the GoM even on the day-of images below is probably a signal that moisture is likely to be a limiting factor for whatever materializes this weekend, even if it's ultimately sufficient for some tornadoes.

View attachment 28959View attachment 28960

Thanks for flagging this - I hadn’t even been paying attention, since I’m not scheduled to head out until right after Mothers Day. But this looks intriguing. SPC has areas outlooked at 15% on Saturday and Sunday, including prime areas of the TX panhandle and W TX on Saturday (not as thrilled with Sunday’s OK-centric area for obvious reasons…) Being on a weekend makes it tempting to consider flying out on Friday, although I’d likely still have to use two PTO days for travel on Friday and Monday. The bar is quite high to make it worth the time, money, and air travel aggravations for such a short trip… I’ll keep an eye on it over the next day or two, but I’m in the mode where I’ll be looking more for reasons not to go than to go…