5/14 - 2pm CDT - Gearing Up for Another Week of Storm Chasing

We're in Amarillo, TX today to prepare for another week of storm chasing with a new set of tour guests. The van has been washed and the oil changed, and all the guides and drivers are fully rested for what Mother Nature will bring in the coming days. While getting things done in Amarillo today, we passed by a bunch of semi tractor-trailers at a truck stop in town carrying blades for the giant power-producing wind turbines in farms around the Plains. Look how huge one of these blades is!

Next week's severe weather risk areas are still a bit fuzzy as we'll be under a ridge here in the Plains for at least the next few days. Once a trough begins moving through on Tuesday into Wednesday, we should see severe weather chances begin to increase. Wednesday, Thursday, and possibly even Friday are all looking like good chase days due to upper-air support and moisture streaming back into the region. Even the Storm Prediction Center is mum on details about next week because of all the uncertainty regarding where exactly this will set up:

LOW LEVEL MOISTURE SHOULD GRADUALLY RETURN ACROSS TX INTO OK AND PERHAPS EVEN KS BY MID-LATE WEEK AS LARGE SCALE HIGH LEVEL FLOW RELUCTANTLY FORCES RIDGE TO NUDGE SLIGHTLY DOWNSTREAM ACROSS THE SRN PLAINS. WITH TIME CONVECTION SHOULD DEVELOP WITHIN INCREASING WARM ADVECTION REGIME ATOP RETREATING SFC ANTICYCLONE. WHILE A FEW SEVERE TSTMS MAY ULTIMATELY EVOLVE WITHIN THIS PATTERN THERE IS SOME RELUCTANCE TO INTRODUCE A MORE ORGANIZED THREAT DUE TO TIMING ISSUES OF RIDGE DISPLACEMENT WHICH SHOULD ALLOW GREATER MOISTURE/INSTABILITY TO DEVELOP ACROSS THIS REGION.