6/29 - 10:15am CDT - The Chase Ends...

Today we're heading back to Denver as Tour 8 with Storm Chasing Adventure Tours ends. Right now we're making the seven hour journey from Valentine, Nebraska where we stayed last night. We had a storm about an hour south of Valentine yesterday that showed some promise, but it fell apart as it moved east. Tomorrow is when everyone departs and that's my cue to get on my plane back home to Louisville. It's been a great week with just about every day being a day with an active chase.

This is not one of those chase days unfortunately. With our required drive back to Denver we don't have time to chase any storms that are more than a few miles away from our route. There is a Slight Risk for storms today in Northeastern Nebraska stretching into South Dakota, but that's just too far out of the way for us. We may have a few run-of-the-mill storms along our route back to Colorado, but that's about it. I'll have a post tomorrow detailing our mileage and route from this week.

6/24 - 10:35am MDT - The Chase Begins!

This morning we're heading toward Cheyenne, Wyoming from Denver as we continue to look at weather data coming in. Today's setup still looks marginal by most accounts, but there are a few small features that could cause a few isolated storms to go severe. For one, surface winds out of the east in Wyoming, Northeast Colorado, and Nebraska will generate upslope flow, which is the lift mechanism we need to get storms going.

These winds will also create some shear because they will be interacting with southwesterly winds at 500 mb (18,000 feet). The issue with this is that the faster winds at this level will be further north toward Rapid City, South Dakota instead of where the more favorable surface winds will be just to the south. In any case, the wind direction at 500 mb will be good enough to usher in the wind shear and maybe some drying of the air at that level to increase instability.

When you put the expected helicity (caused by wind shear) and the instability together for today, you get the Energy Helicity Index (EHI). According to the 14z RAP model, the EHI may try to ramp up a little bit in Northeast Colorado and it even breaks out a little bit of precipitation just west of there too. Surface heating is going to be massive since temperatures will be in the 90's and 100's in some places, so we're hoping this also helps overcome some of the warm temperatures aloft (the cap) so that isolated storms can develop. We're grasping for small features today since there isn't any one thing jumping out to get our attention, but so far it looks like a storm or two could fire on the elevation near Cheyenne. We'll also be watching an area closer to Rapid City, SD to see how things develop up that way.

Follow my continuous chase updates on my Twitter and Facebook accounts today!

6/23 - 11:30pm MDT - Who's Ready to Go North?

Our tour guests have been through orientation and now we're ready to set off for our northward journey tomorrow from Denver to the region where Wyoming, Nebraska, and South Dakota meet. This area will be on the northwestern side of the large ridge in the middle of the country and on the eastern side of the trough coming onshore from the Pacific. This means there will be southwesterly winds aloft, at 500 mb or 18,000 feet, to hopefully bring in some drier air so that instability will increase when it contrasts with the warm, moist air at the surface that will be rising into it. While weak in speed, the winds up there will also increase wind shear because they will be at odds with the easterly and southeasterly winds at the surface. This will increase helicity a little bit, which is a corkscrew-like rotation in the atmosphere that is good for fueling rotating thunderstorms.

Moisture shouldn't be too big of a deal since dewpoints will be in the 60's, but we'll be eying the potential for issues with the the cap, which is a warm layer of air above the surface that inhibits thunderstorm development. All the warm air in place over the central part of the country breeds strong capping since the warm air is in place at the mid levels, but the models are suggesting that this cap may be overcome tomorrow afternoon and lead to some isolated storms. At this point there is nothing that suggests any storm that forms will be anything past marginally severe, but the helicity that the NAM model is picking up on above is certainly worth keeping an eye on.

The Storm Prediction Center has a general thunderstorm risk out for our target area tomorrow with no chance for severe weather. Since storms will be pretty isolated and in a fairly unpopulated area, it may not be worth it for them to issue any sort of severe risk with a setup this marginal. We'll see how things have developed overnight when we set out in the morning though. A secondary low may try to form in western South Dakota tomorrow according to the NAM and that may influence our decision on where to go if it forms since the best winds will be just to the north of the low center. Hopefully we'll see some storms!

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook for the latest tomorrow!

6/19 - 3:15pm - The Last Day of Spring

Tomorrow marks the first day of summer as the summer solstice occurs at 7:09pm EDT. The summer solstice put simply is the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere because the north pole is tilted toward the sun. The sun will be directly overhead at 23.5 degrees north latitude or the Tropic of Cancer, located on a line that runs between Cuba and Florida. Meteorological summer, the three month period that meteorologists consider summertime in weather terms, started on June 1st with hurricane season.

I'll tell you that it's been pretty warm in Europe over the last couple of weeks. My family and I enjoyed a very nice trip around the Mediterranean Sea and traveled to Italy, Croatia, Turkey, Monaco, and Spain. I'm still a little jet-lagged from the marathon flight between Barcelona and Philadelphia we were on Sunday, but I'm slowly acclimating to Eastern Time again. Crazily enough, a tornado touched down in Venice, Italy last week well after we had left port on our ship. Thankfully there were no injuries, but some damage was done in a place that rarely sees tornadoes. Read more about what happened here.

The heat we had in Europe followed me home to Louisville (not meteorologically of course) and now we're experiencing quite a heat wave. High temperatures are expected to be at or above 90 degrees for most of the week here, but we may get a small break on Thursday night/Friday morning thanks to a cold front approaching the area. This thing may run out of steam just as it's nearing the Ohio River late on Thursday so rainfall chances could be slim with this.

If it continues to chug along further south than expcted we could have some storms around during this timeframe. Areas in Western Kentucky and Northwest Tennessee do need the rain, but unfortunately this won't be enough (if it happens at all) to assuage much of the drought in that region. The US Drought Monitor from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has portions of this area under a moderate to severe drought. 

In just four days I'll be heading to Denver to join Storm Chasing Adventure Tours for one more week of storm chasing this year. It's been a whirlwind of a summer break for me so far with three weeks of storm chasing and two weeks of travel in Europe under my belt, but I'm definitely excited for another week of chasing! It looks like storms may fire up early to mid next week in the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Wyoming as an upper-level disturbance inches onshore from the Pacific. It's a bit far out for specifics at this point, but I think moisture and upper-level support during this time might be decent if this disturbance comes onshore in time. The limiting factor may be capping (warm air) aloft since temperatures may be a little high up there. It'll be interesting to see how this develops over the course of the week!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter and Facebook so that you'll be ready to receive my instant storm chasing updates next week!

 

5/17 - 4:15pm MDT - Some Fun in Denver!

Since good storms for chasing didn't form yesterday and won't form today, we're having a bit of fun in Denver, Colorado! Today we split into a few groups, one group that toured the Front Range of the Rockies, one that went to the Denver Art Museum, and another that went to the Elitch Gardens theme park in town. We all had a great time and will meet up this evening for dinner. Tomorrow we'll be heading back to Oklahoma City as Tour 2 ends and we'll be saying goodbye to our guests on Saturday morning.

For next week's tour, Tour 3, there may be a return of severe weather to the Plains. This may take until midweek though as a large-scale trough moves inland from the Pacific and moisture flows back into the region near the surface from the Gulf of Mexico. A lack of moisture in the Plains has plagued us for days now, so this return will be very welcome if what the long-range GFS model indicates pans out.

Be sure to keep up with my updates on Twitter and Facebook!
 

6/4 - 11:15am CDT - Heading Back to Denver

We're on our way back to Denver from Norfolk, Nebraska as we wrap up tour five with Storm Chasing Adventure Tours. We usually chase on the Fridays before we get back to our base city, but it doesn't look like there will be any storms along our route today. This will be my last day out here as I'm flying home to Louisville tomorrow. It's been a great four weeks out here, which included eight tornadoes and numerous supercell thunderstorms. This season overall hasn't had a particularly large number of tornadoes, but the ones that we saw were very photogenic and memorable. It's been great fun meeting all our tour guests as we chased storms throughout the Plains.

I'll begin working on putting together a recap of my four week chasing adventure on my website when I get home. In a few weeks time I'll have a ten minute video with my best footage from this year up on the blog. Since I shot so much footage this year, it may be hard to pick out the best!

It's sad to be leaving Tornado Alley after having so much fun, but at the same time I'm excited to be returning home to Louisville!

5/27 - 11am MDT - No Storms Today? Then Let's Go to the Zoo!

The only risk for storms today exists in Montana, where road networks are poor and data coverage is spotty. We're instead going to hang out here in Denver today and go to see the Denver Zoo! This will work out well because we'll only have to drive north a little bit tomorrow to arrive at our next target area, most likely in Nebraska or the Dakotas. After all the action this week, I think a little break from storm chasing might be nice!