2007...A Chase "Odd"yssey
May 2007 is going to go down in the chasing annals as another disappointing addition to a growing string of crappy Mays. As I've harped about before, the upper air pattern went completely comatose after May 6th and hasn't been the same yet. We've even had a tough time getting large areas of 3000+ CAPE to establish itself.
I had some hope a few days ago after studying GFS ensembles that the operational GFS was too aggressive with strong ridging in the Rockies and deep trough in the east. But, alas, all of the models are in agreement with just that type of setup for the foreseeable future.
However, I'm still sticking to my guns that most of June will be a great month. I'm starting to see enough consistency in the crystal ball that starting around June 7th, things start heating up big time. A large trough/broad upper low establishes itself in the western half of the CONUS. If the advertised blocking pattern establishes itself, we would get locked into that pattern for awhile. We shall see. :-)
Last Friday after work, I kept noticing a cluster of storms persisting out aroung Vega. There was enough instability there along with what seemed to be some sort of stationay and persitent convergence. I thought "what the heck" and moseyed on out there. I sat north of Vega for about 3 hours watching a stationary storm that went SVR and eventually tornado warned. That was quite a treat!!! When the TOR went out, the velocity couplet was pretty pronounced. I was able to get just NE and N of it on 385 and peer back into the notch. Although it was rain-wrapped, I could barely make out an ominous lowering. Some spotters in closer to it reported a brief funnel. The meso rotation was quite apparent in the parent cloud base. I hooked around to the east and back to I-40 and watched another large, ominous wall cloud develop with yet another storm near Vega. Eventually, everything went outflow dominant. But what a nice surprise chase! I think I'll love it living out here. :-)
Then, Saturday, I took a brief early afternoon nap and upon waking up, checked out satellite. An isolated storm had erupted down east of Canyon and was moving slowly south in conjunction with a distinct boundary. That was better than a good cup of double espresso! I was out the door in about 5 minutes. It went severe as I headed down I-27 to catch up to it. The anvil was impressive and the new updrafts were looking good. Unfortunately, my Stevoid powers kicked in and it fizzled as I got to it. I played around with a few other weak cells on the boundary hoping for a landspout, but alas, it just wasn't going to be my lucky day. LOL!!
Ok, back to enjoying the long weekend. Happy Memorial Day everybody!
I had some hope a few days ago after studying GFS ensembles that the operational GFS was too aggressive with strong ridging in the Rockies and deep trough in the east. But, alas, all of the models are in agreement with just that type of setup for the foreseeable future.
However, I'm still sticking to my guns that most of June will be a great month. I'm starting to see enough consistency in the crystal ball that starting around June 7th, things start heating up big time. A large trough/broad upper low establishes itself in the western half of the CONUS. If the advertised blocking pattern establishes itself, we would get locked into that pattern for awhile. We shall see. :-)
Last Friday after work, I kept noticing a cluster of storms persisting out aroung Vega. There was enough instability there along with what seemed to be some sort of stationay and persitent convergence. I thought "what the heck" and moseyed on out there. I sat north of Vega for about 3 hours watching a stationary storm that went SVR and eventually tornado warned. That was quite a treat!!! When the TOR went out, the velocity couplet was pretty pronounced. I was able to get just NE and N of it on 385 and peer back into the notch. Although it was rain-wrapped, I could barely make out an ominous lowering. Some spotters in closer to it reported a brief funnel. The meso rotation was quite apparent in the parent cloud base. I hooked around to the east and back to I-40 and watched another large, ominous wall cloud develop with yet another storm near Vega. Eventually, everything went outflow dominant. But what a nice surprise chase! I think I'll love it living out here. :-)
Then, Saturday, I took a brief early afternoon nap and upon waking up, checked out satellite. An isolated storm had erupted down east of Canyon and was moving slowly south in conjunction with a distinct boundary. That was better than a good cup of double espresso! I was out the door in about 5 minutes. It went severe as I headed down I-27 to catch up to it. The anvil was impressive and the new updrafts were looking good. Unfortunately, my Stevoid powers kicked in and it fizzled as I got to it. I played around with a few other weak cells on the boundary hoping for a landspout, but alas, it just wasn't going to be my lucky day. LOL!!
Ok, back to enjoying the long weekend. Happy Memorial Day everybody!
posted by Steve Miller TX at 5/27/2007 10:12:00 AM
4 Comments:
Would you do me a huge favor and kick that back to June 5th with your little prediction there. I think your crystal ball is confused. Clearly things will heat up on the 5th, right? If not, commence with the mudslide SDS therapy...
Sounds like the Dew is almost in Panic mode..There will be something for her to play with out there. Steve will reach into his bag of "slightly used but never abused storms" and help her out next week. What a guy! ;-)
Well, the crystal ball is kind of foggy, but it still looks like things will really crank up in the 6-8th time frame. However, that doesn't mean no storms at all. :-) With fronts hanging around the plains and increasing instabilities, anything is possible. There will likely be at elast a couple of upslope events in E CO and E NM and with some NW flow atop increasing SE low level flow, that could make for some interesting events.
I'm just focusing on the more general synoptic patterns for more distinct and broader severe weather events. heck, today looks pretty good for my neck of the woods..if something can fire before dark.
Given the nature of my weather killing tendencies... I don't expect to see much. I will be happy at this point to see rain.
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