I 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.
Read more
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.
Read more
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.
Read more
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.
Read more
Day one of a three day mini-chasecation as a upper trough was expected to eject into the Plains potentially providing three days of severe weather. The 23rd presented two target areas: Western Texas and Western Oklahoma was characterized by moderate deep layer shear and modest instability while a second target area in Eastern Colorado where a decent area of instability was expected to develop northeast of the surface low, backing low level winds and advecting 50°F dewpoints into the area.
Read more