The future of the season....

[Joe Zemek]

Ahhhhhhh.... the first day of absolutely no looking at the GFS. None! It's called peace of mind; the serenity to accept the things you cannot change and which are also a pack of lies.

Altho I did nonetheless receive an ominous omen.

I went to AJ's for pizza and microbrew. Deschutes Brewery caught my eye with Cinder Cone Red Ale; hadn't tried it before, so home it came. When I pulled a bottle out, it was still Deschutes, but instead of the red, it was INVERSION I.P.A. Had a little picture of mountains socked in with fog.

Not pleased.

 

[Jayson Prentice]

Mike has the perfect point, the best tornado outbreaks for the northern plains are still most likely to come. I know many of you are down in the southern plains and enjoy the chases down there, but like its' been said before 'go where the storms are' and in June/July you will probably find yourself in IA/NE northward.

We can have plenty of moisture up here just by evopotranspiration and northwest flow will usually just enhance the shear that much. I don't have this year counted out as a lost yet, especially with the chase season really just starting out for me in May.

 

[Kurt Silvey]

1950-2005 Data shows Nebraska had zero tornadoes in May for the years of 1979 and 1981.

Mike
[/b]

I looked that up last night also and saw there were tornadoes reported in May of 1984. I was just going on what the met on TV had said, silly me, or maybe I misunderstood and he said 1981. Either way no tors for May stinks.

 

[Jim Bishop]

My chase vacation begins Saturday, June 3 and goes through June 17. With a ridge axis expected to be planted right over the high plains for most of that period, this looks like one of the worst patterns I've ever seen for a chase vacation! With a ridge that strong you can rule out upslope storms over Colorado because there won't be any noteworth upper level winds to support severe storms. The top of the ridge is going to be found across the Montanta and the Dakotas. So maybe a strong shortwave or two can penetrate the ridge? Well, one tried this past weekend and the ridge won. Nothing significant happened. Even when a shortwave can penetrate the ridge to create a "setup", the cap is usually too strong.

Maybe there will be a couple northwesterly flow setups over Iowa, Illinois & Indiana. The problem I'm seeing is keeping deep moisture over those regions given continued troughing over the Northeastern third of the U.S.

All I can really hope is that ridge axis shifts east at least briefly and allows for some setups across the Northern Plains. Otherwise I'm looking a whole lot of nothing with imbedded terrible setups...

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Northwest flow or bust...or northwest flow AND bust, by the looks of it for a while. Some of the best storms up here have been nw flow storms, so I have some hope. Saturday looks somewhat interesting in c NE...relatively speaking lol. Then maybe something Monday towards the eastern Dakotas.

 

[Robert Dewey]

Well, hell... At least I got to see some vorticies in different motel toilets this May. Although, the flushes tended to be high based given the large t/td depressions in the bowl.
[/b]

I've heard that some of those motel toilet vorticies can be pretty $hitty, lol...

 

[mikegeukes]

Couple of Articles on Synoptic Climatology of Northwest Flow Severe Weather Outbreaks:

A Synoptic Climatology of Northwest Flow Severe Weather Outbreaks. Part I: Nature and Significance. Robert H. Johns, pages 1653–1663.
http://ams.allenpress.com/pdfserv/10.1175%...NF%3E2.0.CO%3B2

A Synoptic Climatology of Northwest-Flow Severe Weather Outbreaks. Part II: Meteorological Parameters and Synoptic Patterns. Robert H. Johns, pages 449–464.
http://ams.allenpress.com/pdfserv/10.1175%...NF%3E2.0.CO%3B2

Sourse: AMS

Mike

 

[Jonathan Whitehead]

something totally unrelated to tornadoes happened to me last year during a chase.
Last year I chased the monster NW flow event in Oklahoma June 16/17/18 (cant remember exactly date). But it was a monster MCS. SPC had to issue PDS Severe for it. I was on it in its birth stage in Buffalo, Oklahoma. And to this day it remains my most adrenaline pumped chase of all. Never was a tornado chase to begin with but it was still an absolute blast (literally and figuratively) to chase from Buffalo, Oklahoma at 3pm hauling tail back through OKC at around midnight and screaming our way back home in absolute horror to Dallas-Ft. Worth around 3am.
So for me its not always a tornado chase that I need to feel successful. Just a monster storm is enough for me

SPC Day 1 for June 16 2005 MCS

SPC Storm Reports for June 16 2005 MCS

 

[Marko Korosec]

Ok, don't know or I just don't have luck or am I missing something...my first USA chase trip was over few days ago, I am pretty happy with the success even it seems like one of the worst season in last 30 years or something. I've seen structures which I can only dream here in Slovenia, wasn't really chasing tornadoes at first priority...a great chase can be made even with outstanding structures and cloud formations!

Anyways, has anyone done any researches about these seasons lately, I thought season cannot be bad two years in a row, but hell its even worse! And if I look over long term GFS for upcoming weeks it still doesn't look like a "season". What is going on with severe wx/tornado activity in May lately, especially in tornado alley? Ok, I know its only two years but still...this year is again really poor I think, if we don't count early spring.

Its probably all a guess but what could be a cause for such below average seasons...are there cycles like in hurricane season, would it be La Nina/El Nino activity, global warming effects, etc.

Maybe all this is silly, but hey I don't want to come next year and get another poor season...a tornado or two could be cool to see next time as well, lol

Good luck and stay safe all who chasing in June, even it doesn't look impressive at all.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Ok, don't know or I just don't have luck or am I missing something...my first USA chase trip was over few days ago, I am pretty happy with the success even it seems like one of the worst season in last 30 years or something. I've seen structures which I can only dream here in Slovenia, wasn't really chasing tornadoes at first priority...a great chase can be made even with outstanding structures and cloud formations!

Anyways, has anyone done any researches about these seasons lately, I thought season cannot be bad two years in a row, but hell its even worse! And if I look over long term GFS for upcoming weeks it still doesn't look like a "season". What is going on with severe wx/tornado activity in May lately, especially in tornado alley? Ok, I know its only two years but still...this year is again really poor I think, if we don't count early spring.

Its probably all a guess but what could be a cause for such below average seasons...are there cycles like in hurricane season, would it be La Nina/El Nino activity, global warming effects, etc.

Maybe all this is silly, but hey I don't want to come next year and get another poor season...a tornado or two could be cool to see next time as well, lol

Good luck and stay safe all who chasing in June, even it doesn't look impressive at all.
[/b]

Marko, I'm sorry about your first trip in tornado alley...We hope for the next year.
About June...What to say? I'm pretty sure that June can't end in this way. I'm sure that this bad ridge will be early taken away from the GFS maps. The real chasing season can't be called ended before june 20-25th.
I'm sure about one thing: till 20-25 june we'll see something good.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

One of the common threads I've seen running over the last couple of seasons is the weakness in upper level winds. We see this point frequently in forecast and report threads. It also seems to be one of the players in supporting favorable environments for hurricanes, as the generally weak flows aloft do not promote shear. Hurricanes love calm winds aloft. Supercells are the opposite. They thrive on powerful UL support, which can promote stronger shear and vent the storm, giving it a greater ability to achieve balance.

I've been wondering if there has been much said concerning the correlation between the two ... if in years where we typically see a decrease in supercell spawned tornado activity we simultaneously notice more favorable conditions for hurricanes. And vice versa.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

if in years where we typically see a decrease in supercell spawned tornado activity we simultaneously notice more favorable conditions for hurricanes. And vice versa.
[/b]

I'd be interested in seeing such a comparison. It should be noted that we are still well above average in terms of annual tornado count --> http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/Tornado%20Trend2.jpg ... The extremely active March and April wasn't necessarily chaser-friendly (most of the tornadoes east of the Plains, and associated with fast-moving storms). Regardless, based on the 10-year average, we're about 200 tornadoes above average. All the usual disclaimers preside (these are prelim numbers, etc).

Maybe a comparison of just May and June tornado counts to tropical activity?

 

[Mike Peregrine]

What would really be nice is if we could see some kind of graphical overlay that represents something like:

*Month-by-month Pacific water temps from say March through September of both 2005 and 2006

*Month-by-month Atlantic temps for the same period

with

*Month-by-Month supercell-associated tornado activity (for both years my guess is that we'd see a spike early in the season, followed by a lull in May, followed by another brief spike in June, followed by the typical summer lull in July-August)

*Month-by-Month hurricane activity


I'm not really sure how to go about linking some sort of graphical overlay concerning UL winds or jetstream activity during the same period. It's just a hunch, but I'd bet that early in the season the UL winds have been spiking and then going into a lull. With the jetstream moving north earlier, troughs are kept well to the north as well, allowing warmer water temps to support hurricane growth and production earlier than we typically consider "seasonable" ... sheared environments are being kept well to the north side of the continental air mass, so fewer systems sweep the Gulf and break tropical systems apart.

 

[Marcus Opitz]

June can be a good month depending on when the summer heat and jetstream patterns take over. I have seen good pics and video of June storms most notably in the north and west half of the plains. I like the slower storm movement associated with June as well. We are JUST NOW getting rain in Central FL, Its been real dry here. I wonder if that would corelate with anything, I doubt it.

 

[Joe Zemek]

Its probably all a guess but what could be a cause for such below average seasons...are there cycles like in hurricane season, would it be La Nina/El Nino activity, global warming effects, etc.

Maybe all this is silly, but hey I don't want to come next year and get another poor season...a tornado or two could be cool to see next time as well, lol

Good luck and stay safe all who chasing in June, even it doesn't look impressive at all.
[/b]

Well, La Nina tends to bring a hotter and drier late spring /summer to the Plains, but you could still have a good week of 2-3-4 tornado days. El Nino can be good for the Plains by bringing some consistency to Western troughing and moistening up the Southwest to alleviate the 850mb warm air advection than would otherwise strengthen the cap on the Plains.

Here's a big problem: much of the southern and high Plains is in moderate to severe drought. Lack of moisture is bad no matter how you look at it. Sure we need a dryline somewhere, but come on. We have no way of knowing if this drought will persist or decline. We might be in for several years to a decade of diminished storm activity in what is currently the prime chase territory in the Alley.

You have a bigger problem than most of us in being overseas (you should have my distance problems). Your best bet is to stick with the climatology unless it becomes clear over several years that things have changed. Not every year will feature this blighted Great Lakes perma-trough setup.