Today's Thoughts 3/22
Ouch! Well, with the convective melee, immense cold pool, and too many clouds in the warm sector combined with weak upper dynamics just didn't do much after all. Like I said, it was an hour-by-hour sort of day and what looked great at 1830z quickly turned sour a few hours later. There was a big honking HP and linear bow segment that raced across my target area from around Tulia to Clarendon into SW OK...right along the front. Nothing but linear high base junk further south. I felt like I was chasing in North Central Texas again! lol
UPDATE 1830Z: We had a strong t-storm move through AMA with LOTS of pea/marble hail and winds to 60mph. Considerable street flooding and some hail drifts. Things are becoming much clearer as to the chase potential today....and pretty much like I was thinking earlier this morning. Nice outflow boundary as setup from SE NM into the PH around Tulia. As I was hoping, the clouds are breaking up nicely to the south of the OB and the low level winds are remaining backed to the SE as well as transporting good moisture even up on the caprock. The moisture has a little depth to it as well. Everything is coming together for at least a couple of isolated tornadic supercells this afternoon...most likely right on the OB. It's convenient that it is close to home. :-)
"
THIS WILL INCREASE EFFECTIVE STORM RELATIVE HELICITY AVAILABLE WITHIN STORM INFLOW LAYER...AND IN TURN ALLOW STORMS TO BECOME SUPERCELLS. STEEP LAPSE RATES AND FAVORABLE DEEP LAYER SHEAR WILL FAVOR LARGE HAIL. SHEAR IN THE LOWEST 1KM IS NOT PARTICULARLY STRONG. HOWEVER...RIGHT MOVING SUPERCELLS WILL BE FAVORED AND LOW LEVEL VORTICITY WILL BE ENHANCED ALONG OUTFLOW BOUNDARY CURRENTLY FROM ROW TO AMA. THUS...ISOLATED TORNADOES MAY OCCUR"
Things are abit more complex this morning. Alot of clouds and increasing precipitation all across E NM and the W parts of TX and the PH will make for a very tricky forecast today. As a result, instabilities are going to be meager. Surface focii will be about as complex with boundaries galore. Today is going to be one of those hourly mesoscale analysis until something becomes more certain by early or even late afternoon. Even then, with expected extensive cloud cover today, it is going to be tough.
The pros for today are good helicities with surface flow backed today from the SE with SW flow aloft. If we can get a decent W/E outflow boundary setup, that would get me a tad excited. ;-) Of interest is the ongoing strong t-storm near Clovis, NM as I write this trying to exhibit a bit of devient motion. If the stronger SE low level flow remains intact along with the moisture feed (and I'm believing it will), then the chance for right-turning cells today will be very good. These will be potentially tornadic..although I don't see a high threat of tornadoes because of the thermodynamics...but the lower LCLs and strong low level SREH should compensate. A good 850mb jet from the S will also help out.
So, the question is, where? Right now, I like the area about 25 miles either side of a line from Muleshoe to Tulia to Clarendon. This is on the southern edge of the ongoing heavy storms and a tad of thinning cloud cover. The models are also trying to setup some additional synoptic scale convergence along with good moisture with dewpoints near and a tad above 60F expected today. I'm also starting to suspect that the bigger cells in far E NM will track eastward into this area and intensify...but by that time will be HP bruisers. However, they will also lay down additional boundaries for other storms to latch onto.
Of course, everything could very easily erupt into one large convective melee across the entire region today and ruining any chance for a good chase. It's a very distinct probablity. I'm hoping that a bit of a cap will establish itself later this afternoon and keep storms more on the isolated side. As I mentioned earlier, this is a classic hour-by-hour forecast for today.
As for this weekend, the models are diverging again, but starting to show a bit of a consensus in slowing the system down and breaking it into two chunks of energy. Either way, things are going to get wild this weekend and now Sunday is in play....at least it is starting to look that way at this point.
Stay tuned!!!
UPDATE 1830Z: We had a strong t-storm move through AMA with LOTS of pea/marble hail and winds to 60mph. Considerable street flooding and some hail drifts. Things are becoming much clearer as to the chase potential today....and pretty much like I was thinking earlier this morning. Nice outflow boundary as setup from SE NM into the PH around Tulia. As I was hoping, the clouds are breaking up nicely to the south of the OB and the low level winds are remaining backed to the SE as well as transporting good moisture even up on the caprock. The moisture has a little depth to it as well. Everything is coming together for at least a couple of isolated tornadic supercells this afternoon...most likely right on the OB. It's convenient that it is close to home. :-)
"THIS WILL INCREASE EFFECTIVE STORM RELATIVE HELICITY AVAILABLE WITHIN STORM INFLOW LAYER...AND IN TURN ALLOW STORMS TO BECOME SUPERCELLS. STEEP LAPSE RATES AND FAVORABLE DEEP LAYER SHEAR WILL FAVOR LARGE HAIL. SHEAR IN THE LOWEST 1KM IS NOT PARTICULARLY STRONG. HOWEVER...RIGHT MOVING SUPERCELLS WILL BE FAVORED AND LOW LEVEL VORTICITY WILL BE ENHANCED ALONG OUTFLOW BOUNDARY CURRENTLY FROM ROW TO AMA. THUS...ISOLATED TORNADOES MAY OCCUR"
Things are abit more complex this morning. Alot of clouds and increasing precipitation all across E NM and the W parts of TX and the PH will make for a very tricky forecast today. As a result, instabilities are going to be meager. Surface focii will be about as complex with boundaries galore. Today is going to be one of those hourly mesoscale analysis until something becomes more certain by early or even late afternoon. Even then, with expected extensive cloud cover today, it is going to be tough.
The pros for today are good helicities with surface flow backed today from the SE with SW flow aloft. If we can get a decent W/E outflow boundary setup, that would get me a tad excited. ;-) Of interest is the ongoing strong t-storm near Clovis, NM as I write this trying to exhibit a bit of devient motion. If the stronger SE low level flow remains intact along with the moisture feed (and I'm believing it will), then the chance for right-turning cells today will be very good. These will be potentially tornadic..although I don't see a high threat of tornadoes because of the thermodynamics...but the lower LCLs and strong low level SREH should compensate. A good 850mb jet from the S will also help out.
So, the question is, where? Right now, I like the area about 25 miles either side of a line from Muleshoe to Tulia to Clarendon. This is on the southern edge of the ongoing heavy storms and a tad of thinning cloud cover. The models are also trying to setup some additional synoptic scale convergence along with good moisture with dewpoints near and a tad above 60F expected today. I'm also starting to suspect that the bigger cells in far E NM will track eastward into this area and intensify...but by that time will be HP bruisers. However, they will also lay down additional boundaries for other storms to latch onto.
Of course, everything could very easily erupt into one large convective melee across the entire region today and ruining any chance for a good chase. It's a very distinct probablity. I'm hoping that a bit of a cap will establish itself later this afternoon and keep storms more on the isolated side. As I mentioned earlier, this is a classic hour-by-hour forecast for today.
As for this weekend, the models are diverging again, but starting to show a bit of a consensus in slowing the system down and breaking it into two chunks of energy. Either way, things are going to get wild this weekend and now Sunday is in play....at least it is starting to look that way at this point.
Stay tuned!!!
posted by Steve Miller TX at 3/22/2007 09:40:00 AM
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