6/2 Pics & Weekend Chasing Ahead
It appears that the long awaited upper air pattern change is underway. This will herald in a very active severe weather mode for at least the first half of June. Buckle your seatbelts. :-)
Alot of uncertainty is swirling around however as to the quality of the setup. Models are showing some signficant differences in the details with the upper level configuration. This of course affects what happens at the surface. One concern will be the quality of moisture return (theme for 2006 and 2009 so far) for at least Friday and Saturday. Thank the recent major front plowing into the GOM coastal areas spreading a big chunk of dry air all across the plains. It is going to take some time to get the moisture back up to June standards. That might not be until Sunday at the very earliest...more likely Monday.
Friday definitely has alot of ingredients for tornadic supercells, but the moisture will be pitiful creating large dewpoint spreads and high based outflow dominant storms. With great vertical veering profiles, they should be pretty photogenic. Beyond that, my confidence level quickly drops as alot of variables have yet to be filled in...lots of doubt. More on that later.
On Tuesday, I headed towards Miami/McClean and intercepted the storms there. I saw some nickle hail and winds up to 60mph for a brief moment. One cell around Lefors did develop a nice little wall cloud with persitent weak organized rotation. That was about as exciting as it got as outflow dominated storm mode quickly ensued. Made for some decent pics. And for the chasers out there convinced that most law enforcement "hates" chasers, I once again had a friendly and positive encounter with a Texas State Trooper whom I shared data with and shot the bull with briefly. I think I'm now well over 200 positive encounters now in my "chase career" without a single negative encounter. Hmmmmm.....
And one more gripe...to the chasers in the white Saturn SUV headed W on 287 around Clarendon....was it really necessary to be heading up the highway at 85mph+ with your emergency flashers making traffic clear the left lane with only a piddly, weakening, high based, extremely outflow dominant little thunderstorm up ahead? It's rare that I would ever want wear the stormchaser police badge, but c'mon. Use a little common sense and chill out. Ok?
Anyway, pics!!
Intense precip core with nice rain foot.
Intensifies further and scud begins transforming into a wall cloud which would exhibit organized, weak rotation in concert with the storm base. GR3 was also showing some weak rotation in the storm too at this time with a little bit of a hook appearence.
I refer to this as a hybrid between shelf and wall cloud.
Attempting a little artsy shot with the beautiful golden wheat field in the foreground.
Alot of uncertainty is swirling around however as to the quality of the setup. Models are showing some signficant differences in the details with the upper level configuration. This of course affects what happens at the surface. One concern will be the quality of moisture return (theme for 2006 and 2009 so far) for at least Friday and Saturday. Thank the recent major front plowing into the GOM coastal areas spreading a big chunk of dry air all across the plains. It is going to take some time to get the moisture back up to June standards. That might not be until Sunday at the very earliest...more likely Monday.
Friday definitely has alot of ingredients for tornadic supercells, but the moisture will be pitiful creating large dewpoint spreads and high based outflow dominant storms. With great vertical veering profiles, they should be pretty photogenic. Beyond that, my confidence level quickly drops as alot of variables have yet to be filled in...lots of doubt. More on that later.
On Tuesday, I headed towards Miami/McClean and intercepted the storms there. I saw some nickle hail and winds up to 60mph for a brief moment. One cell around Lefors did develop a nice little wall cloud with persitent weak organized rotation. That was about as exciting as it got as outflow dominated storm mode quickly ensued. Made for some decent pics. And for the chasers out there convinced that most law enforcement "hates" chasers, I once again had a friendly and positive encounter with a Texas State Trooper whom I shared data with and shot the bull with briefly. I think I'm now well over 200 positive encounters now in my "chase career" without a single negative encounter. Hmmmmm.....
And one more gripe...to the chasers in the white Saturn SUV headed W on 287 around Clarendon....was it really necessary to be heading up the highway at 85mph+ with your emergency flashers making traffic clear the left lane with only a piddly, weakening, high based, extremely outflow dominant little thunderstorm up ahead? It's rare that I would ever want wear the stormchaser police badge, but c'mon. Use a little common sense and chill out. Ok?
Anyway, pics!!
Intense precip core with nice rain foot.
Intensifies further and scud begins transforming into a wall cloud which would exhibit organized, weak rotation in concert with the storm base. GR3 was also showing some weak rotation in the storm too at this time with a little bit of a hook appearence.
I refer to this as a hybrid between shelf and wall cloud.
Attempting a little artsy shot with the beautiful golden wheat field in the foreground.
posted by Steve Miller TX at 6/03/2009 09:57:00 PM
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