Upcoming 2016 Storm Chasing Season

[Jeff Duda]

Crazy how it all works... It just seems to be feast or famine all the time down there.

I was actually thinking of that exact same phrase when pondering the rain earlier this week and last year in general. The last 5 years it seems there has been no moderation regarding precipitation - it's either record wet or record dry in the southern Plains with almost no occurrences of near-average monthly precipitation OR if there is near-average monthly precip, it comes from one or two really heavy precip events with large spans of zero precip in between. We can't seem to string together days with low precip or anything.

 

[James Gustina]

The almost complete lack of native grasses east of -99 doesn't help with soil moisture retention either. A lot of the southern Plains got tilled up and replaced with flora that shouldn't be present in a semi-arid environment.

 

[samuel stone]

The almost complete lack of native grasses east of -99 doesn't help with soil moisture retention either. A lot of the southern Plains got tilled up and replaced with flora that shouldn't be present in a semi-arid environment.

Interesting thought. Id love to see a study on how changing the natural flora over as abroad of an area as the plains over a period of time could affect climate. I'm sure there is stuff out there maybe i'll look around.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Get your calendars out and mark this one...it's only 25 days away!

 

[Andy Berrington]

Get your calendars out and mark this one...it's only 25 days away!

Actually growing more impressed with the signal from the Euro and ensembles towards the second week of March. Seems to be a shift towards rather persistent western troughing supported by the GWO forecast to rotate through phases 8-1 along with a possible trend in the PNA towards at least neutral and the EPO towards positive. CPC precip forecast for the 6-10 and 8-14 day periods agrees with positive anomalies across the SW initially and then spreading east. CFSv2 SCP chart has been consistently (for several weeks now) showing a ramp up in activity for a sizeable portion of March. Can't say I'm not optimistic about where we stand frankly, aside from the persistent +PDO.

 

[Brandon Clement]

I really think this year is (and already has started) to mirror 1998 quite a bit. Active January and February like 1998. If that trend continues then 1998 featured quite a bit of action in the SE including the Birmingham EF-5 and the Nashville tornado outbreak 10 days later that produced another EF-5 as well as an ef-4 along the Ar/Tn line. It was also a very active year in the NE with rare significant tornadoes in NY, Pa and Va. 1998 was also a dreadful year for the plains up until late May into June.

Last year to me was horrible in the plains. The red river region was active and the tornado count was average to slightly above average but so many storms were HP and produced many brief tornaodes. I can't think of more than about 3-4 tornadoes last spring that were highly visible, large and long duration tornadoes. To me that's a horrible season in the plains. I've had single days where I've seen as many good tornadoes as I did all last year in the plains.

Really though it's all just a giant guessing game. All it takes is a couple big setups to produce a couple tornadoes that can make a season.

If I had to guess, I think we see an active year in the SE and Tn valley, an average season in Ok/Tx, slow season in Ks and Ne but I agree with Jason Boggs. The Dakotas, Mn and Wi play is just so overdue. Have a feeling we'll see a busy late June in the high plains and upper midwest with a surprise outbreak in the NE thrown in somewhere along the way.

 

[Michael Gavan]

Good number of pro's buying into the 1998 similarities. Bill Stefen posted this today on his blog: http://woodtv.com/blog/2016/02/28/similarities-to-1998-and-the-terrible-derecho/


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[James Gustina]

Starting to see even more consistency with long-range ensembles bringing multiple waves through the central CONUS towards the middle and end of the period. I doubt we kick off with anything amazing, but hopefully we see our first setup heading into the second or third week of March out on the Plains if the signals stay consistent.

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[Andy Berrington]

Euro has consistently been projected a strong shortwave trough ejection (perhaps negatively tilted) into the central/southern Plains around March 7th. Something worth keeping an eye on as it is showing a fairly large axis of destabilization associated with a steep lapse rate plume ahead of the dryline along with rather robust shear profiles. Don't need upper 60s dewpoints if you have mid level lapse rates of 7-8+ C/km.

 

[James Gustina]

Probably not tornado producers right out of the gates but even the chance at some daytime storms on the horizon is welcomed. Might get the chance for some early test runs before the fun stuff heads our way towards the end of March.

 

[Tim Paitz]

How about the Midwest? It's been all about the Plains and Southeast but not here. Most of the storms in the state last year were in Northern Illinois.

 

[Nick Copeland]

I am really intrigued with the setup for TX/OK around the period of March 7th & 8th. While still nearly a week out and some of the dynamics still need to be ironed out. I am not overly impressive at the moment but, looks somewhat promising at the least if the instability, shear and moisture return remains in place. Interested in hearing others opinion on this setup or I am just being super cell deprived and anxious and going delirious.

 

[James Gustina]

I am really intrigued with the setup for TX/OK around the period of March 7th & 8th. While still nearly a week out and some of the dynamics still need to be ironed out. I am not overly impressive at the moment but, looks somewhat promising at the least if the instability, shear and moisture return remains in place. Interested in hearing others opinion on this setup or I am just being super cell deprived and anxious and going delirious.

If the moisture keeps improving on Sunday the shear would be more enough to get me out the door. The issue cropping up that was also covered in the latest D4-D8 outlook is the removal of the moist axis from the strongest lift along with a delayed lead impulse not ejecting ahead of the main trough before things get set up nicely on Sunday. But compared to the next two days, Sunday doesn't have to contend with a VBV profile that's been consistently showing up the previous few runs along with a southeastward moving sfc low.

 

[Jeff Duda]

I am really intrigued with the setup for TX/OK around the period of March 7th & 8th. While still nearly a week out and some of the dynamics still need to be ironed out. I am not overly impressive at the moment but, looks somewhat promising at the least if the instability, shear and moisture return remains in place. Interested in hearing others opinion on this setup or I am just being super cell deprived and anxious and going delirious.

I think just about any trough in the SW US with some moisture and shear is going to look attractive in early March.

Very interesting forecast evolution. I watched the GFS all winter predict these giant ass troughs that would swing well south of the border, but not a single one ever panned out. That naturally leads me to doubt this one, too, but it has been very consistent both within the GFS and across multiple models, so it very well may happen. Not sure moisture quality will be sufficient, nor will shear be the greatest. The 12Z GFS shows over 1500 MLCAPE on Monday, which frankly surprises me considering where it was a day or two ago. However, the wind fields near the surface are also pretty strong, which really cuts down on deep shear. Not sure there will be sufficient forcing to get initiation on Sunday.

Details. Anyway, things will be come clearer as the event draws near. Could certainly be the first legit daytime severe weather event in the southern Plains this year, but I highly doubt it will be memorable. Keep in mind, it's the first week of March, so there will almost certainly be better systems ahead, probably not even that far away (I predict March will be active this year).

 

[Brett Roberts]

After 2013-2015, my standards for March are practically nil, so this upcoming pattern is great. Anything besides continuous eastern troughing and Gulf-blasting fronts is a sight for sore eyes. I, too, think that March will be busier than average. Of course, it's very rare to get high-quality Plains chase days this time of year, so that could just mean a lot of low-end days to dust off the gear and shoot structure. But that's fine - as long as this warm winter and potentially active early season doesn't give way to a complete lack of synoptic-scale baroclinity by May and June, like 2012! And obviously, the precipitation associated with this pattern helps to mitigate any concerns about short-term drought affecting the main season.