Thoughts about the upcoming 2015 chase season

[Marcus Diaz]

For the lolz.

View attachment 8822

(96 hr rain Feb 3)

Although that is way out to next Saturday, there might be some truth to it. There's a significant positive tilted trough showing up on the GFS that's very similar to the one we had here a couple of days ago. A cold front looks to blow through on Friday with some lingering 20-30 dews behind it. This has the makings of another big panhandle snowstorm and maybe a big soaking rain for southwestern TX/northern Mexico. The overall pattern is favorable for some decent precip in areas that need them. The drought DOES play a roll in severe weather season. I don't think anyone will be upset if the Panhandles become the common target for 2015.

 

[John Farley]

Now I have to change mine to 2,613 to win all the marbles.

Get ready Illinois chasers! With that warm front across Illinois 1,000 of them will be in Illinois

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

That is one nice weather dong.

Ha HA!

:lol:

More characters here

 

[calvinkaskey]

Even with all the cold air last year there was a major outbreak of tornadoes (although weak) in February.

 

[James Gustina]

I kind of hate having this warm spell thrown into late January with the next arctic surge not too far on the horizon. Just makes it that much more brutal of a wait. It's looking like a possible wintry mix setup in the Texas Panhandle on Thursday with rain basically everywhere east of the Caprock into Oklahoma. Hopefully it's a decent pick up across SW OK/NW TX, they could really use the rain.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

This next system is indeed tricky. The max temps are on that borderline of the freezing point. Regardless, the ground temp will be quite warm so not much accumulation will occur. Although it does appear to be a nice ground soaker for the panhandles/eastern NM/western Oklahoma.

 

[James Gustina]

Still looking like a solid .75-1 inch pickup across the southern Plains this weekend.

 

[James Gustina]

This is a nice sight, eastern New Mexico and the Panhandles are about to get in on some precip along with Chihuahua.

 

[Michael Gavan]

Well, I think we can count on at least March not having southern plains soil moisture problems. That might translate to more wet weather in March, which then helps with April. I dunno, very positive looking from my perspective. Now we just need troughs and gulf flow. And about a million other things. But lets get deliberately and utterly ahead of ourselves and officially call 2015 a rebound year.


EDIT: This is a daily forecast. The 2/10 forecast showed all of west and SW TX completely saturated

 

[chrisbray]

Not excited to see the next two weeks on the GFS as pretty much ridge west, massive trough east! I hope it doesn't get stuck like this for too long, not just because I hate the bitter cold, but I also don't want a repeat of the end of last winter....which was pretty much neverending polar fronts!

 

[Jeff Duda]

EDIT: This is a daily forecast. The 2/10 forecast showed all of west and SW TX completely saturated

Should probably stick to deeper or longer term soil moisture anomalies. They have a longer memory and higher resistance to daily precipitation and temperature trends and therefore will provide better guidance at longer ranges. Short term and top-layer soil moisture can be completely depleted by a good week of warm and dry conditions.

 

[Jeff Duda]

We might maybe not be possibly heading towards an El Nino still: http://climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/details-february-enso-discussion-edge

This week's drought monitor update:

Yes, extreme to exceptional drought remains across southwestern Oklahoma, northwestern Texas, and parts of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles. However, the areal coverage of the drought is far less than what it has been when the multi-year drought started (see 2011 and 2012 maps for instance). Also notice the lack of drought across much of WC/SW Texas and SE New Mexico!

The change in drought status over the last 8 weeks:

Not much has changed across the SGP and SW US region over the past two months. Late fall into winter isn't exactly the time to expect dramatic changes either, though. Will continue to monitor. Below shows a bar chart of the areal coverage of the drought areas across the "south" region (OK, TX, AR, LA, TN, and MS), further showing the lack of change lately.

 

[James Gustina]

Our EML source region is going to be a lot less of a moisture blast furnace if we maintain where we're at which will definitely help out setups earlier on in the year further west in the alley. I'm overall optimistic at this point that we won't see the same SFC moisture problems we did the past two to three years.

 

[Warren Faidley]

AccuWeather predicts upswing in severe activity this spring......

Full article: http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/accuweather-spring-forecast-2015/41636471

"We've had slow starts with stable air hanging around longer through the spring season. This year's a little different."
Warmer air will be more widespread across the country this season, increasing the instability of the atmosphere.


"I think we're going to have a lot more tornadoes for the spring season compared to the last couple of years, with it really picking up as we get into April and May in the more traditional areas down south." Little Rock, Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee; and Jackson, Mississippi; will be the focus in the heart of severe weather season.


Drier air will work its way across the central and northern Plains at times that could hold back the severe weather in those areas. Places like Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Wichita, Kansas, could catch a break.


"We're looking farther east than west," Pastelok said.

 

[Michael Gavan]

I read that too Warren.

By what sort of synoptic pattern would you end up with the dryline staying east of OKC and Wichita? Even in the last three years it was all over the place like normal....Just lack of troughing. Meanwhile we are cold in the west which indicates a SW flow, which would be favorable for TX/OK. Do they expect that the trough period will just be so massive it skips zip right through CA, and then right under TX/OK?

If the SE is to experience severe weather and Tornadoes...How would it do so without a favorable trough ejecting out of the SW? Unless it's some sort of crazy Just in time troughing out of the midwest into the SE, but that means ridging in the west! Trying to wrap my head around this.

Accuweather IS short on specifics though, and it seems more like SWAG than forecasting.