Still recovering from the long drive back home on the 22nd, another chance for severe weather in Iowa presented itself for the 24th and only being home for 24 hours before heading back there made me question my sanity. Nevertheless, the storms are a callin’ and the forecast looked decent enough for me to pull the trigger.
Read moreI hadn’t planned on chasing in southeast Iowa on this day. I had actually taken the day before off and took a leisurely drive along the Mississippi River to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin where I stayed the night. Little did I know, I’d end up driving past the hotel I stayed at in Ottumwa the night before while tracking storms in Southeast Iowa again.
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June 20th through the 22nd looked like a decent opportunity for a three day chase. The 20th featured a belt of westerlies across the northern portion of the CONUS while a low with attendant cold front in the Dakotas was progged to drift to the southeast into the midwest. East of the front, the warm sector looked to be characterized by a moderately unstable airmass with MLCAPE approaching the 4,000 J/Kg area as temperatures were expected to be in the low 80s with low 70 dewpoints.
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May 25th was the final day of my three day mini chasecation and I had spent the night in Hays expecting a play in Central Kansas. A negatively tilted mid level trough was expected to rotate out of the foothills and into the Missouri Valley while modest meridonal flow of 80-100kts overspread the target areas. The SPC had outlined two risk areas: A moderate risk of severe weather in Eastern Texas as well as a slight risk from Salina to Des Moines along a frontal zone where higher lapse rates were expected to overspread mid to upper 60s surface dewpoints later in the day.
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Day two of a three day chase featured a slight risk in the Ozarks while marginal severe probabilities existed on the High Plains. A weak surface low was forecast to develop near the panhandle region and move north eventually consolidating near the Nebraska/Kansas border. With a negatively tilted trough and 100kt upper jet there was a decent chance for severe weather in Eastern Colorado into Western Kansas where dewpoints were progged to reach the low to mid 50s.
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