May Schmay and My Gas Rant

Yawn! Once again, May ends up being another major dissapointment for stormchasing. The upper air pattern went into hibernation after May 6. It is one of the most bizarre patterns I've ever seen looking more like July/August with anemic flow over most of the entire country except along the Candian border region. It's made even more bizarre considering the upper air pattern has been nuts since December. It hasn't been bad here though in the Texas panhandle with quite a few "Chamber Of Commerce" days with cool, crisp temperatures and really beautiful weather. We were even in the 50's all day yesterday with foggy/drizzly weather. So much for the official chase season starting May 1, eh? Just like the old saying goes with Texas Rangers baseball..."there's always next year" LOL!!

However, the upper air pattern is rumbling and coming to life again. It appears the last 3 weeks of May won't be a total washout.

Tomorrow, Sunday, has a little promise with increasing instabilities and a weak impulse setting off some multi-cluster storms that might reach severe levels. I don't think it will be worth the cost of gas to go play with unless they are right down the road. I'll watch it though.

Monday looks like a potential day for some chasing as the dryline impenges on 2000+ CAPE and we pick up a little mid level flow perpendicular to the low level flow. I like what I see right now, but will hold off on getting excited until more model runs tomorrow evening.

Tuesday looks like the big day...and quite possibly for the panhandles and SW KS. Much better upper support and flow with stronger surface focii certainly sets us up for some chasing. But, again, too many variables that could come into play like a faster cold front or too much convection could complicate things.

Into the crystal ball, Thursday/Friday looks interesting as the models have been persistent with a little jet streak and returning low level moisture/instability. Then, the models are now becoming abit more persistent in establishing broad troughiness across the western CONUS as we head into Memorial Day and beyond. Ed Berry and some NCEP discussions are pretty convincing to this amateur meteorologist that the models' trends for that time period have some merit. It would also fit well with what we have seen in past years that June makes up for a dismal May.

I've been watching the 300-200mb subtropical jet stream closely. It is still blasting across Baja and northern Mexico as it has for quite awhile. It seems "stuck" there at that southerly latitude. Climatology dictates that it will shift northward eventually (if it doesn't fizzle as we've seen too much of in years past). If it does shift northward into the plains in June, we could see an incredibly active month ahead. That would make me a happy camper since I live in Amarillo and historically, this area into Kansas usually rocks in June.

But, the season doesn't stop in July either. If Ma Nature doesn't setup a humongous ridge over the central plains, then eastern Colorado can be alot of fun in July. I've seen it before and have watched some really massive and brutal supercells roll across the eastern plains of that state...as well as Nebraska on occassion. With as much moisture as we will likely have to work with in July, it could be a great month.

Of course, all of this depends on the mood of the oil companies. Gas prices are going through the roof right now making any chase excursion an expensive one. Amarillo has some of the highest prices in the country right now outside of the left coast. It leaped to $3.39 here on my side of town. A note to anybody heading up this way....ALWAYS fill up on the east side of town...east of I-27. I've saved as much as 20 cents per gallon a couple of times.

I've noticed over the past 3 months that all of the stations on this side of town always change price on the same day and by the exact amount...always. These are different companies too. Somebody somewhere is manipulating the market here...as if that's a surprise. :-) We are being played for a bunch of suckers, but people are starting to scream about it. So, in perfect unison, those same stations dropped back down to $3.28 today. They do this and then in a few days, they jack it back up another 10-15 cents.

As usual, nothing will ever be done about it from our elected officials. They are bought and paid for. We hear excuses from the oil industry that the price spikes because of seasonal fuel mixtures, not enough refinaries, refinaries shutting down for maintenance (and why they choose to do this at this time of year isn't coincidental), yada, yada, yada. They try to do that with a straight face as they report quarterly or annual profits that exceed that of most third world countries.

But, there really isn't anything we can do about it. Our political system is so deeply corrupted, voting for somebody else is a futile endeavor in my opinion. it hasn't worked yet. The Democrats are more obsessed in impeaching Bush and getting revenge than they are in really addressing the serious issues of our country. They sometimes put on an act and pretend that they are upset about the energy situation to get votes, but as we've seen from them this year...as soon as they get into office, they fail to act....business as usual. The Republicans already had their chance and totally blew it. But, I'll stop my political rant for now. Just vote Libertarian! :-)

What I CAN do about it is get a much more fuel efficient vehicle. I have no doubt that we will see $4.00/gal gas sometime soon. Since I love my retirement accounts as much as chasing, I'm going to be getting a new vehicle sometime late this summer or fall. I'm going to be looking hard at hybrids and anything that can pop 35mpg or better. I figure by that time, more consumer information will be available as well as what will be rolling off the assembly lines for the 2008 model year. There will be ALOT of homework to do at that time. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to find somebody to to ride along and share the costs too. The trick is finding somebody to put up with me. LOL!!!

Ok...I feel much better now. Thanks for reading! :-)