Sunday, May 9, 2010

5/9 - 1pm CDT - Gearing Up for Tomorrow's KS/OK Oubreak

We're off to the border of Kansas and Oklahoma to be in position for tomorrow's severe weather outbreak. There's a bit of concern that ongoing thunderstorms tomorrow morning in Kansas may contaminate the atmosphere and not allow the warming and destabilization needed to generate the outbreak. If that happens, we will likely have to travel south near the Oklahoma/Texas border. The SPC is still maintaining a Moderate Risk (45%) area for the region tomorrow, but they acknowledge that this may need to be adjusted if the morning storms stick around. We'll see how it goes tomorrow morning.

In any case, if the clouds and rain do manage to clear in time near the Oklahoma/Kansas border, I think we'll be chasing some very good storms tomorrow. The GFS and NAM computer models are indicating about the same numbers for shear, instability, and moisture as they were yesterday (see last blog post) with some minor alterations in location. Supercells that form tomorrow will be moving between 40 and 50 mph. That means we won't have a lot of time to stand around and watch the storms, but rather stay in the car and try to keep ahead of them. Here's hoping for a good chase tomorrow!

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