Chasing Today

It's amazing how things can change in 24 hours. Overnight and this morning, a large are of prolonged light to moderate rain across the western half of the TX PH and W TX into Kansas had created a large rain-cooled airmass in these areas. The interesting aspect is that this area was pretty much stationary with a sharply delineated cloud shield. The result is a large, sharp baroclinic zone between the coll airmass and "warm sector" immediately to the E and S where strong insolation is ongoing and expected to continue.

Already, strong cumulus congestus field is setting up in the E TX panhandle along this boundary area from about Wheeler to Clarendon. Additional agitated cumulus is showing up in NW OK. With boundary layer dewpoints from 68-73F all across the area when combined with very strong insolation cooking this tropical-like airmass into the upper 80's and 90's, the instability will be pretty good today. Most important is the expected 0-3km CAPE values which will be quite high.

Aloft, 500mb winds from the SW at 30-45 knots above southerly 20-30 knot 850mb winds and SSW 700mb winds 30-40 knots are favorable for some nice supercell modes today...in particular any storm that gets deeply rooted along any boundary and moves slowly or with a strongly deviant motion. Above 500mb, the winds are fairly weak, so storms will be more HPish.

So, after not planning on chasing today, this is a nice turn of events and another reason why one should not count the season over until it truly is. :-) However, the models are pretty certain that the season for me at least will be over after today. The summer upper ridge, which made a very annoying premature appearence in May, will setup over the weekend and settle in for awhile.

So, I will be chasing today...my finale to the 2009 chase season.