4/17 - 6:35pm - Severe Weather Tomorrow in Mississippi

A line of severe thunderstorms will move through Mississippi tomorrow, bringing the threat of damaging winds, tornadoes, and hail. The timing on these storms in Starkville will be somewhere near 10pm. Given the uncertainties in this forecast you should be on alert for severe weather in the Golden Triangle between 8pm and midnight tomorrow night. Be sure you have a NOAA weather radio or a smartphone weather alerting app ready to go! All the details on this severe weather forecast are available in the video below.

6/25 - 10:30am MDT - Great Faces. Great Places.

Today's blog post title is the South Dakota's state slogan. As you can probably gather by that, we're in South Dakota today! Southwesterly flow aloft at 500 mb (18,000 feet) will be present in the western half of South Dakota, northwest Nebraska, and Eastern Wyoming today as the general pattern we dealt with yesterday continues. While the winds aren't terribly strong, the RAP model is beginning to pick up on an area of enhanced speeds near 30-40 knots around parts of Western South Dakota and Northwestern Nebraska. If this enhanced area verifies there could be some better storms under it.

At the surface right now there are southeasterly winds across this area, but the more easterly of the wind vectors are favoring Western South Dakota right now. We'll see how this develops throughout the day as surface conditions continue to change. We'll want these more easterly wind vectors becuase they'll contribute to low-level wind shear that could possibly lead to rotating storms, should they form.

I say "should they form" because we're still dealing with some very warm temperatures aloft. These warm temperatures aloft, called "the cap", inhibit storm development because rising air parcels can't continue to rise buoyantly if the environmental air around them is warmer than they are. The good news here is that temperatures at the surface today will again be in the 90's to near or above 100 degrees. This will really heat up these surface air parcels so that they might shoot through the cap. All models I've looked at this morning have the cap breaking at some point in the early to mid afternoon, but where exactly this happens is still in question. The 14z RAP model has an interesting hole in the cap at around 4pm near Rapid City, but our current thinking is that the Black Hills near Rapid City will be a focus for storm development because they are a constant source of lift and thus a typical location for storm initiation.

To get some of the heating we'll need for storms to form today, we need to have a plentiful supply of sunshine. Right now we do have a layer of clouds over South Dakota that is inhibiting this right now, but western parts of the state are clearing out and it should hopefully leave us with blue skies later this morning. Storms should form sometime after 3pm this afternoon should things come together as forecast. The main threats will be wind and hail from any storm that forms, but we'll be on the lookout for some rotation in these storms as well. The Storm Prediction Center has a general thunderstorm risk for our target area today, but also mentions a 5% severe wind and hail risk.

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook for the latest updates this afternoon!

5/16 - 10:45am CDT - To Colorado We Go!

After spending quite a bit of time in Texas over the past few days we are on our way north to Colorado this morning. We're going to try to chase some storms that may form in the upslope flow of the Front Range of the Rockies. Here's how these form: Moist air flows from east to west up the gentle slope of the mountains during the afternoon. This moist air when lifted by the terrain condenses because it's moving into cooler air aloft. As more air rises up this gentle east-west slope, it continues to condense to form clouds and eventually thunderstorms. Since the mountains act as a constant source of lift, these storms can be pretty reliable as long as other ingredients are in place.

Here's the issue for today though... Moisture is going to be hard to come by today because the last major system to roll through the Plains last week pushed all the moisture down toward the Gulf of Mexico. A little bit of it will be returning to the region today though and we can already see that happening on the current surface map. Dew points right now are in the 30's with a couple 40 degree plus readings across the eastern part of Colorado where these storms will form. In a perfect world you'd want easterly winds to be blowing in better moisture and to create better low-level shear, but this morning we're dealing with southeasterly winds. The good part is that it doesn't take as much moisture to generate these storms as it does in lower elevations. Generally you want dew points to be above 40 degrees in this region, and that's something we may struggle to get today if the computer models are correct.

Putting all of this together with some weak southwest winds at 500 mb (18,000 ft) there is a chance for some storms in Eastern Colorado today. With potentially weak moisture return the setup for anything severe looks very "iffy" at this point and the Storm Prediction Center has placed parts of Eastern Colorado under only a general thunderstorm risk because of this. We'll keep an eye on the surface observations this morning and afternoon to determine whether moisture will return as needed.

Last night I had a good internet connection at our hotel and was able to upload some video. Check out my footage of our encounter with golf ball size hail and flash flooding east of Lajitas, Texas on Monday:




Follow me on Twitter and Facebook for updates on our chase today!

5/15 - 11:30am CDT - Excitement in Southwest Texas Yesterday

My apologies for not having a blog post last night. We're in the Big Bend National Park area of Texas and there was little to no cellular data service where we stayed last night. Our travels along the Mexican border region of Southwest Texas yesterday were quite exciting though. We started off in Pecos, Texas and traveled south to Paradisio, Texas right on the border. We waited here for some storms to form before heading eastward to intercept them. Most of these storms were clustered together, but there were a couple cells that stayed independent that came toward us and crossed the border. The tornado threat wasn't realized yesterday because low-level shear did not play out as forecast due to unfavorable surface winds and multiple storms contaminating each other with cold outflow air. As we drove on the mountainous road along the Rio Grande river (yes there was a certain Duran Duran song of the same name stuck in my head) there was not much cell service so we had very limited radar updates. We drove east of Lajitas, Texas as the strongest cell at the time came at us rather quickly with no escape. Our vehicles pulled to the side of the road near a rock wall and that shielded us from the brunt of the golf ball size hail that came down.

This storm put down a huge amount of rain, so much so that the residents in this area that we talked to hadn't seen something like it in over four years. The deluge quickly overwhelmed the ground and widespread flash flooding took place. Our road east along the border was flooded by a foot of water at one point, so we stopped for an hour to let the water level drop. 6 or more inches of water is dangerous to drive through. The rushing rapids going over the road brought some pretty big rocks and debris, but luckily none of this was too big for a hand toss to the side of the road. Our group then continued on to a town just outside the Big Bend park area where we spent the night. I have some great video of the hail and flood yesterday that I'll try to upload once we get to a hotel with internet service.

Today's storm setup in Texas looks very marginal so we're touring the Big Bend area and then heading north so we can be ready for storms that may form in Eastern Colorado later on this week. With limited moisture in the Plains it might be hard to find some good storms over the next few days. We'll make the best of it!

Keep up with our chase by following me on Twitter and Facebook.

5/14 - 12:30am CDT - Great Lightning Tonight in West Texas!

We were treated to a great lightning show just north of Pecos, Texas earlier this evening as a few isolated storms merged together to create a fast-moving line of storms (MCS) that quickly caught up with us. These storms packed some very large hail and high winds at their peak, but luckily we were able to stay ahead of them during that time. The storm kicked up quite a bit of dust in the gust front, so it created low visibilities and an eerie scene in Pecos as it moved through. This comes after a day of fruitless chasing because storms that were expected to form near the Midland, Texas area did not due to a lack of required surface heating. More photos of this storm are available on my Flickr and Facebook albums.

Tomorrow we'll likely be chasing in West Texas again, but this time it may be closer to the Mexican border. Fast winds aloft, moisture at the surface, and winds blowing up the mountains in Mexico from the east should trigger some storms tomorrow afternoon after the ones tonight move through. The setup will be relatively similar to today, but hopefully we're able to get some more stronger isolated storms out of this. Here's some of the high points from the Storm Prediction Center's discussion on tomorrow with their Slight Risk area:

IN THESE AREAS...STEEP LAPSE RATES/MODERATE DESTABILIZATION ANDVEERING WIND PROFILES WILL BE SUPPORTIVE OF SUPERCELLS WITH LARGE HAIL AS THE PRIMARY HAZARD...ESPECIALLY MONDAY AFTERNOON/EARLY EVENING. STORMS MAY AGAIN CONGEAL/ORGANIZE INTO ONE OR MORE SOUTHEASTWARD-MOVING LINEAR CLUSTERS WITH A DAMAGING WIND/HAIL THREAT CONTINUING MONDAY EVENING/NIGHT ACROSS THE RIO GRANDE RIVER VICINITY.

Get the latest storm chasing updates on my Twitter and Facebook accounts!

3/31 - 3pm - Severe Risk in West Tennessee

Storms are already popping up in Tennessee as a weak disturbance aloft is allowing the warm, moist air that we have at the surface to rise. A Severe Thunderstorm Watch is in effect for a good deal of West Tennessee until 9pm CDT tonight and the main risks from these storms should they become severe will be large hail and wind. With temperatures aloft being so cold the storms should be able to produce hail easily today. Might want to think about putting your car in a garage or carport if you have one.

Instability is already building across the region as you'll see on the right image. Storms have not really broken out across West Tennessee yet because a weak warm layer aloft known as the "cap" is prohibiting air from rising. Once we get a degree or so warmer that cap should erode and storms will form. This will not be a tornado day because wind shear is very, very weak.

Check out my forecast from this morning on WBBJ below:



Be sure and catch me on 7 Eyewitness News again this evening at 6 and 10 o'clock!

8/7 - 5:15pm - More Storms in Our Future

Did the storms in Louisville wake you up this morning? I slept through them, which is probably a good thing because those that couldn't sleep through them early this morning sure looked tired today. Locations near Downtown Louisville saw rainfall amounts exceed one inch this morning, but most of the suburbs and outlying areas received under an inch. Click the image on the left from NWS Louisville to see a complete map of the rainfall totals from this morning. More storms are possible this afternoon and especially tomorrow as a cold front to our north provides a focus for development.

I've been watching the radar and satellite image for the past couple hours and it appears that ongoing storms dropping southeastward near Indianapolis may send out a some outflow boundaries toward Louisville over the next few hours. Outflow boundaries are like miniature cold fronts created by the cool air flowing out from a thunderstorm's downdraft. They also can cause storms to develop because they are a source of lift and that's why they're so important when forecasting short-term storm development. Since we have a little bit of wind shear and a very unstable atmosphere over the Louisville area right now, a kick from one of these southward-moving outflow boundaries may cause a few isolated storms to develop this evening. Storms may also form without the boundary if another small-scale feature or surface heating gets things going first. So, a vast majority of the area will stay dry, but if you happen to get under one of these wildcard isolated storms get ready for some heavy rain and wind.

There's a much better chance for storms tomorrow as a shortwave disturbance moves through the region. These storms will likely cluster together into an MCS (Mesoscale Convective System - complex of storms) and severe weather is possible. These scattered or MCS storms will roll through Louisville sometime tomorrow late afternoon or evening. Damaging winds, frequent lightning, and small hail will be the main threats from these storms. If they cluster together in a line, wind damage probabilities will be higher. The Storm Prediction Center has placed much of Kentucky, including Louisville, in a 30% Slight Risk area for severe weather tomorrow due to these factors.

7/12 - 10am - Another Day of Incredible Heat

Here we go again. It's already 87° with a dew point of 81° in Louisville and we're just getting started. See that condensation on my door to the left? That started at 10pm last night when the temperature dropped a couple degrees and just now cleared up with sunlight and a bit of heating. That's some crazy humidity right there. I think we'll get near yesterday's high of 97 again today, but like yesterday the dew point is the bigger story. With such a high temperature and high dew point in the low 80's (which is almost unheard of in Louisville), heat index values will be exceeding 110° again. An Excessive Heat Warning has been issued that goes from 11am this morning to 8pm this evening.

...But wait! There's more. We're under a Slight Risk from the Storm Prediction Center for severe weather this afternoon as a cold front approaches the area from the north. This is mainly a wind threat (notice the 30% wind risk red area on the right), but there's also a small chance for hail. A lack of wind shear and helicity (turning of the atmosphere) will eliminate any tornado threat for the most part. This front should be the trigger for some southward-moving clusters of scattered storms this afternoon. With all the heat energy and moisture in the area, there's no question that some of these could reach severe limits as the SPC indicates. Not everyone will see storms this afternoon, but those who do will receive quite a bit of rainfall, lightning, damaging wind, and a break from the heat. The cold front is positioned just south of Indianapolis right now and is moving fairly slow, so there will be quite a bit of time for storms to fire today and tonight before the front passes through sometime early tomorrow.

5/15 - 8am CDT - Videos From West Texas

Here are two videos from yesterday's chase in West Texas. The first contains the supercells we chased near Kermit, TX and the second has the sunset supercell we chased near Brownfield, TX on our way back to Amarillo:

Both videos are available in 720p and 1080p high definition.

5/14 - 8am CDT - Video from Yesterday's Chase in Texas

It took quite a while for storms to get going around Fort Stockton, Texas yesterday, but the handful of cells that finally formed put on a good show. The two strongest cells we saw had some good lowering, but rotation was marginal at best. There was likely some large hail in the cells as well.

This video is available in 720p and 1080p high definition.

We'll see what we can find here in Texas later this afternoon!

8/11 - 12pm - Severe Weather in Mississippi

The SPC has issued a SLIGHT Risk for a good portion of the southeast today:


CAPE values in central Mississippi right now are topping 4500 J/kg and storms are firing vigorously. Shear values are way too low to have a tornado threat here, but high winds and a bit of small hail aren't out of the question. Hopefully these storms can hold temperatures down this afternoon into the lower 90's instead of the middle 90's.

Looks like Louisville had more flooding problems yesterday with storms that came through the area. More storms are on the way for this afternoon up there, so they'll really have to keep an eye out for more flash flooding.
[Courier-Journal, NWS]

A typhoon that already caused havoc in Taiwan came ashore in China yesterday, causing one million people to be evacuated and numerous fatalities. A typhoon hit Japan yesterday as well, which caused landslides and fatalities.
[USA Today]

6/25 - 1:30pm - Scattered Strong Storms

More heat is on the way with a high somewhere between 92 and 93 today. Looks like we're going to see some scattered strong storms this evening as a cold front comes through. West surface winds and light shear should prevent them from becoming too bad, but there could be a few severe storms with wind and hail.

More showers and storms will roll through tomorrow, but none are expected to be severe. Saturday looks dry and very hot (mid 90's), but scattered showers and storms will make another appearance on Sunday. Once the rain on Sunday is finished, we should stay clear and dry with highs in the mid to upper 80's next week.

6/12 - 9:00pm MDT - We're Done for the Day

After chasing a supercell through Southeast Colorado, we're done chasing today. There weren't any funnel clouds or tornadoes, but we saw a well-defined wall cloud. As the sun set, we drove under a gas station and let it pass over us. The storm came quick, which didn't give me and a member of our group named Charley time to get inside the car before the ping-pong ball size hail came. We both ended up squatting behind the chase vehicle because the wind was blowing hail and heavy rain under the overhang of the gas station. Things settled down after a few minutes and we got back in the SUV soaked. It was great fun! We're now heading back to base in Denver.

Tomorrow is the end of tour 6 and the beginning of tour 7 for Storm Chasing Adventure Tours. We'll say goodbye to Stephen, Charley, and Dave and welcome four new guests tomorrow as they arrive. Active storm chasing will resume on Sunday, but until then, we'll be running errands and getting ready for next week.

Here are some pictures:

6/12 - 7am MDT - Supercell in Colorado Yesterday

Things started pretty quickly once we got out to Eastern Colorado yesterday. Cells fired due to upslope flow, but they started sticking together and could not produce tornadoes at that point:


We watched these storms form just east of Denver and then we let one pass over us so that we could get south of it. Marble-sized hail fell brutally upon our vehicle, but nothing was big enough to cause damage. What did cause some problems was the amount of hail that stayed on the ground minutes after the storm passed:


I-70 east of Denver was covered with hail and we lost traction at least twice while braking. The air temperature also dropped to a frigid 39 degrees as the hail fell, down from around 65 just minutes earlier. We went to the tail-end of this now conjoined storm system to see if anything would intensify, but nothing was happening.

That's when a little cell near Pueblo, CO started making itself known on radar. It was unknown how this cell would develop, but after a few minutes of radar observation it became clear that this cell was going to be a good one. We made the drive down to the Pueblo area and found an intense supercell that was dropping a wall cloud. A second one formed just to the south of the first after a few minutes and then both started to fluctuate and join. This joined supercell was absolutely enormous and gave chasers (including VORTEX2, the TIV, and The Weather Channel) a few hours of absolute action. We even found the TIV (Tornado Intercept Vehicle) and took some very close-up pictures! Unfortunately it did not put down a tornado, but we did see a brief rope funnel (2:34 in video below). Here's a video of the cell from its early stages to sunset:



Here are some pictures:

6/9 - 1am CDT - All Sorts of Weather

As we drove south to Texas this morning we decided to stop off at the National Weather Center at the University of Oklahoma:


This shiny new building on OU's campus is home to the National Severe Storms Laboratory, the Storm Prediction Center, and other branches of NOAA. We couldn't get past the first floor without a formal tour appointment, so we just looked at some of the tornado probes and other items they had on display.

We got south of Wichita Falls, TX and found four storm cells in their infancy at around 3pm CDT. After an hour of formation, we chose the most westerly cell. Boy was that a good choice:


This storm had good enough rotation on radar to produce a tornado, but it just stopped short of dropping a funnel. Here's a video of the storm at its height, notice the inflow winds:



After this cell weakened and merged with a couple other cells, it started to take on great deal of dust with inflow winds. As the storm began to become outflow dominant, all that dust flew out of the storm in one big burst and created a bit of a dust storm:


As the storm once again strengthened, it presented another picturesque updraft base over a field of wind turbines:


This storm then raced to Abilene, TX where we met up with it after nightfall. It was a dying storm by then so we decided to core-punch it and shoot north to see some lightning. The storm unexpectedly strengthened and even started throwing out signs of rotation and notching along the southern edge as we headed into the center of the storm. Not to mention hail of 3"+ in diameter possible inside the hail core. These things plus some very intense rain made Todd change his mind and we abruptly turned around to find shelter. We found a gas station in Tye, TX and camped out under the overhang for a few minutes. While there, we experienced torrential downpours, frequent lightning, and strong winds. A transformer near the gas station blew in a fury of sparks and blue-green flashes after a few minutes of this intense weather. Needless to say, customers inside the convenience store were surprised by the sudden power outage.

How do you end an action-packed day like that? Pizza Hut!

It looks like we'll be traveling to Northern Oklahoma or Southern Kansas tomorrow. The SPC has just issued a MODERATE Risk for Central Kansas tomorrow, but we'll take a look at the data after breakfast in the morning. Here's hoping for another exciting day!

6/8 - 4:30pm CDT - Storm Cells Firing

We're southwest of Wichita Falls, TX getting ready to choose a developing storm cell to intercept. Our LIVE streaming video and current location have just been activated for the day, so you can follow along with us at http://stormchasertv.com.

Things don't look too promising for tornadoes at the moment, but large hail and nice cloud structure are a sure bet. I'll be posting updates on Twitter and Facebook, so keep checking back!

5/31 - 11am - Everything Shifted Northward

The severe weather we were supposed to receive yesterday shifted northward and caused quite a few problems near Indianapolis. Large hail, funnel clouds, wall clouds, and even a few tornadoes were reported. Here's the complete map of storm reports from the SPC yesterday:


There were some heavy storms in Breckinridge County, KY last night that put down some large hail and very heavy rain. That's as close as the storms got to Louisville last night.

Today, tomorrow, and Tuesday look very nice, with highs in the upper 80's and sunny skies. Storms might roll through on Tuesday night, but I'm more concerned with Wednesday. With a cold front to our south, good instability, and decent moisture, there could be some severe weather across the area. There's a great deal of question as to how fast and when this front will pass through, so I'll leave the severe weather probability in the chance category for the moment.

I should be able to post everyday this week, but there will be a lot of things going on. I have three more days of high school left, then graduation on Friday, and finally I leave for Denver on Saturday to go storm chasing.

6 days until storm chasing begins!

5/15 - 6:45pm - A Few More Storms

As storms moved through late this afternoon, heavy rain fell and even hail was reported. Parts of Eastern Jefferson County reported hail larger than golf ball size and we were placed under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning until the cell passed. We may see a few more scattered storms this evening, but more substantial precipitation will come from storms ahead of a cold front expected to come through tomorrow evening. Rain should start tomorrow morning and end before midnight.

After all this rainy mess goes through, we're done with rain for quite a while! The computer models look free and clear until next weekend. Temperatures will rise from 70 to the mid 80's by late week.

22 days until storm chasing begins!

4/10 - 9pm - Tennessee Tornadoes

We were lucky to only see pea-sized hail and heavy rain here in Louisville today, but areas to our south fared much, much worse. The worst of the weather was in Rutherford County, TN, where I was born and lived for the first few weeks of my life before moving to Louisville. A tornado ripped through Murfreesboro, TN and traveled through other Rutherford County towns like Smyrna, destroying more than 20 homes, killing two people, and leaving dozens injured. Here's a picture of the well-defined tornado over the Murfreesboro Airport, home to the Middle Tennessee State University aerospace program:



A damage survey will be completed tomorrow by the NWS in Nashville to determine the scale of this tornado. I know Rutherford County pretty well (30 miles south of Nashville), so seeing the pictures and reading the reports out of that area is pretty shocking.

There were tornadoes with reported injuries in other parts of the Southeast as well, including Kentucky:



For a complete wrap-up of today's tornado damage, click here.

Rain should continue for a couple more hours tonight before clearing out for a beautiful Easter weekend. We should see 60 degrees for tomorrow, but I think we'll warm up a bit more for Easter Sunday, possibly into the mid 60's. Rain chances pick up quite a bit on Monday.

7/22 - 12pm - Only .03" of Rain!?

I woke up and heard the storms last night, thinking we were in for a good bit of rain. Well, they pretty much missed us. My rain gauge reads .03" since midnight. Ouch.

Some areas around the region got dumped on, but the storms fell apart as they reached the Ohio River. Sure, there was a great deal of wind associated with what we had, but the rain just fizzled out. We're under the gun again today with a SLIGHT risk from the SPC, mainly for wind. Looks like we'll be dealing with a similar situation this afternoon into this evening compared to last night. A line of storms is forecast to build just north and west of us and slide southeast, with the possibility of large hail, high wind, and an ever so slight risk of an isolated tornado.

More posts to come on this today...