Saturday 4/25 Forecast & Video Uploads

With SDS raging across the stormchasing community, the moderate risk, 15% tornado threat, it being a Saturday, a relatively small target area.....an army of stormchasers is expected to descend on an area around Shamrock, TX today. I'm already issuing a "PDS Chaser Convergence" watchbox for the area bounded by Woodward, OK, McClean, TX, Childress, TX and Hobart, OK. :-)

I will certainly be out there among the hoardes today pointing my lens along with hundreds of others at mother nature's spectacle. This is by far the best setup of the 2009 season. Everything is coming together quite nicely for some raging, tornadic supercells two-stepping across the eastern TX Panhandle and the western half of Oklahoma. Of particular note are the crazy forecast hodographs among the models by 00Z and beyond. It is impressive to say the least with forecast SRH values well exceeding 500 and even closing in on 1000 immediately north of the frontal boundary!!!! There is no doubt that these storms will be rotating strongly from the surface through 25,000 feet creating some spectacular storm structure and definitely tornadoes.

The *only* caveat I see are *potentially* weaker mid and upper level storm-relative flow helping to trend supercell mode towards the HP spectrum. Thus, tornadoes, especially the stronger ones, will have a good chance of getting rain wrapped. Forecasting this type of "tornado mode" is very tough however. I'm just keeping this possibility in the back of my mind as I chase today to help shape my strategy. One option I'll be considering is backing off a few miles and documenting what I believe will be spectacular displays of storm structure. We shall see.

As far as my target? I actually think a broader target is in order today as I think anywhere along the front will be good from Alva/Woodward down to Shamrock/Childress. In fact, with so many chasers targeting Shamrock, I think the potential along the front up near Woodward/Alva to perhaps even Wakita/Enid/Wichita is being overlooked by many. I think several tornadic supercells will be lighting up the entire broad target area. For me, I'll be heading towards Shamrock later because of starting out in Amarillo.

The critical factor will be the position of the frontal boundary and where it intersects the dryline. Right now, there is a good surge behind the front helping it make good southward progress. However, strong upstream pressure falls along with increasing daytime heating ahead of it will help impede its progress and eventually stall it this afternoon. So, I'll be watching the front's progress very carefully today.

One thing to also watch out for as well is an even better setup for strong, violent tornadoes right at dark and into the overnight hours as the LLJ kicks up a couple of notches and the hodographs get even crazier.

I'll be teaming up with David Drummond, Jay McCoy, Jeff Bernard, and perhaps Kanani today as we get ready to enjoy a stormchaser's feast offered up by Ma Nature. I also hope to run into my twin from OK Steve Miller, Ben Holcomb, Shane/Bridget, perhaps even Glenn Dixon as well as my other friends out there. It's gonna be fun!!!

I've also uploaded video from my chases on 4/16 and 4/17 below. Enjoy!