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!

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!

 

5/25 - 11:50am CDT - A Grand Finale

Ever since earlier this week we've had our eye on today's setup in Central Kansas. The moisture return, a low developing over Southwest Kansas, and upper-level wind support all kept us coming back to look at the models to see how it was shaping up. For a while it looked like the cap, or a layer of instability-inhibiting warm air aloft, was going to surpress storm formation but now we're seeing a situation where there will be just enough break in the cap to allow for a few isolated supercell storms to form. To get surface heating today to break that cap we need to clear out the clouds across Kansas first. A push of dry air at around 10,000 feet is currently moving from Southwest Kansas to the northeast and is eating these clouds for breakfast as you see in the satellite image to the right. We expect this to keep moving throughout the day and hopefully it will clear out the clouds in time to get some serious surface heating going.

The big story here today is the moisture return. For the first time this week we are seeing a situation where dew points will surge into the mid to upper 60's. Yes! This much-needed moisture will be the fuel for storms this afternoon and should give us a much better show than the moisture-deprived low-precipitation storms we've been seeing lately. While we don't have this moisture in the area quite yet, it's streaming in like crazy right now. Strong easterly and southeasterly winds are blowing this moisture into Kansas from Missouri and Oklahoma and will continue doing so throughout the day. Having mostly easterly winds in Kansas right now is a very good thing because this is creating just about optimal low-level shear for rotating supercell storms.

Speaking of wind shear, this will create quite a bit of helicity, or a corkscrew-like rotation of air in the atmosphere. When you combine helicity with instability in an equation you get the Energy Helicity Index (EHI). As I've said before I think that indicies and parameters can be distracting since human analysis is always better than a formula, but EHI seems to be fairly reliable since it is so basic and relies on two very basic ingredients. This afternoon's EHI values in Kansas will be the highest we've seen out here this season according to the Rapid Refresh model. That's some great news for storm chasers because higher EHI values typically correlate with enhanced tornado potential.

The Storm Prediction Center has a Slight Risk for severe storms today from Iowa to the Texas Panhandle and within that a 5% tornado risk in Kansas. This is quite the change from the previously non-severe "general thunderstorm" outlooks that they had been issuing for today because of the concern that strong capping may inhibit storm development. Today is our last chase day out here for Tour 3 and my last day out here until I come back for a week in June. If we could see some good storms today that'd be a great end to the first part of my trip! Tonight once we're finished chasing we'll be traveling back to Oklahoma City where I'll fly back to Louisville from tomorrow morning.

Follow up-to-the-minute reports on our chase on my Twitter and Facebook accounts!

5/24 - 11:30am CDT - A Repositioning Day

Yep, there's a Moderate Risk for severe storms in parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa today according to the Storm Prediction Center. It's too bad because we simply can't chase there due to the amount of trees and vegetation along with a considerable distance from Oklahoma City where we need to be tomorrow night. Here's the plan then: We're going to drive south from Des Moines to Kansas City and then cut west in Kansas for this evening when we could see some overnight storms with lightning in that region.

Tomorrow still looks interesting to say the least. Right out front I need to say that this setup has a very high bust potential because of all the capping that will be in place. Warm temperatures of 10 degrees Celsius and higher at 10,000 feet (700 mb) will act as this capping mechanism because it will inhibit warm air from rising buoyantly into the layers above for thunderstorm formation. With that said, this cap may weaken just enough for a couple of storms to fire up in Kansas tomorrow. They would likely be very isolated due to the capped environment, so that's definitely a plus here.

We all know by now that the models have not been handling moisture very well lately and tomorrow probably won't be any different. The NAM model has dew points of 65 degrees Fahrenheit and higher in Central Kansas at 4pm CDT. If this is overdone and we see dew points between 60 and 65 degrees it still wouldn't be too bad. An area of low pressure smack dab over the middle of Kansas should help bring some of this moisture in and also create a considerable amount of wind shear for rotating storms, especially near the warm front just south of the Nebraska border. Again, this is all if the cap actually breaks tomorrow. If it doesn't we'll be sweating it out in the sun as we watch cumulus cloud towers fail to rise high enough for storms. Tomorrow morning I'll post again with an update on this potential.

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook for updates!

5/18 - 2:45pm CDT - Regarding Next Week's Chase

As we make our way back to Oklahoma City on our last day of this week's storm chasing tour, I'm looking over quite a bit of data for next week's severe weather potential. After a lengthy period of high pressure ridging across the Plains (A.K.A. no storms) we're finally seeing signs that a large-scale trough will begin to move onshore from the Pacific and begin to affect the Plains during the middle part of the week. A smaller trough will be coming through this weekend as well but not a lot of moisture and our inability to chase during its peak on Saturday due to our down day in Oklahoma City means it will not be discussed here.

This trough coming in next week will need some moisture to work with for severe weather to form. This is something we've had a problem with for a while now but it looks like the Gulf of Mexico will finally be "open for business" starting next week. As the trough begins creating southwesterly winds and diffluence aloft in Kansas extending into Northwest Oklahoma on Wednesday (5/23), southerly winds at the surface should begin to bring in some much-needed moisture. The degree to which this will happen is still very much up in the air at this point because the GFS model has been consistently overshooting actual dew points, meaning it's been too optimistic about moisture return. The European model does agree that moisture will begin flowing into the Plains on Wednesday, but to a lesser degree than the GFS on the right.

This setup will continue right into Thursday and Friday as the trough digs in and moisture continues to flow into the region. These two days may harbor better severe weather chances than Wednesday due to having more time for moisture to return. Given the possibility that small-scale weather phenomena like cloud shields and overnight storms could limit potential on any of these days it's very difficult to point out which of them will be the best for storm chasing. Not only that, but the aforementioned computer model issues and amount of time between now and the trough moving into the Plains creates an even bigger margin of error. It's safe to say right now that things are certainly looking more favorable synoptically (on a large scale) for severe storms, but calling for a tornado "outbreak" at this point wouldn't be logical due to the variability of all the smaller features involved. This setup certainly has our attention and we're keeping close watch! Our robotic streaming webcam has been sitting dormant since we haven't had any storms lately, but we're hoping that we can put it in action next week.

Follow my storm chasing updates on Twitter and Facebook!

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.

5/13 - 10:15am CDT - Going West!

This week's storm chasing tour is starting out with a trip west from Oklahoma City. Fast westerly and north westerly winds aloft this afternoon over West Texas and Eastern New Mexico will provide support for potentially severe storms. While originally it looked like we would definitely be chasing in an area near and west of Fort Stockton, TX, the latest data coming in right now has actually increased the amont of moisture closer to Amarillo and Lubbock, TX. This moisture along with easterly winds rotating around a high pressure center near Wichita, KS could provide a secondary target area for us, which is good because we may not have to drive as far today! We're keeping an eye on the trends as we're traveling west on I-40 and right now we're leaning toward the more northern target near Amarillo and Lubbock because we think the models are underestimating the amount of moisture that will be allowed into that region this afternoon.

The satellite picture has been on our computer screens this morning too because it's revealing where storms may set up later on today. The previously more favorable target near Fort Stockton in far West Texas on I-10 looks a bit dismal at the moment because of the showers and clouds currently over that area. This may act to inhibit surface heating and the building of instability this afternoon for storm development. There are some storms in Eastern New Mexico, but those may actually help to moisten up the atmosphere closer to where you see the favorable clear slot in the clouds near Amarillo and Lubbock.

The Storm Prediction Center has a Slight Risk area for severe weather over extreme West Texas and the eastern half of New Mexico for this afternoon. This outlook came out before the latest data showing the favorability in conditions near Amarillo and Lubbock did, so some northward changes may be made in the outlook that will come out at 11:30am CDT. Overall, the (small) tornado threat today highly depends on how much moisture we can get into the area so that cloud bases are low enough along with how much low-level shear sets up.

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook today for live updates!

5/11 - 11am CDT - A Crazy Chase in South Texas Yesterday

Our timing yesterday was just about perfect. As we surged southward from Carlsbad, New Mexico to the Del Rio, Texas area we began tracking storms that were forming in the mountains of Mexico near the Texas border. One fairly supercell formed along a boundary of converging wind just north of Laredo, TX in Mexico and we knew that this was the storm we needed to chase. It merged with another supercell that was moving north quickly to create a big storm with some intense rotation. We were able to get to the south side (where a tornado would be) just in time so that the hail and intense rain wouldn't cut us off from our road down to that area. Once we were there we saw some definite rotation and a couple wall clouds, but the storm was moving fast so we had to keep moving toward Laredo. We pulled over in a parking area just north of the city and continued to watch a wall cloud form that had a tiny hint of a funnel cloud in it. It was so small that it was barely visible, but it was certainly in rotation and was on the correct part of the storm. That was about all the storm had to offer tornado-wise.

By the time we made it east from Laredo the storm had merged with others to form a line of storms called an MCS (mesoscale convective system). This pretty much killed the tornado risk for this storm so we watched a very impressive lightning show from it as the sun set. Given the excitement that we had while chasing the storm while north of Laredo yesterday, it was a pretty good day! You can find more storm chasing photos from yesterday and earlier this week on my Flickr and Facebook albums.

Today we're traveling back to Oklahoma City so that our guests on Tour 1 can depart on their flights tomorrow. Tour 2 starts tomorrow night with our orientation and then we set out on Sunday for another week of storm chasing!

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook anytime for storm chasing updates.

5/9 - 11:15pm MDT - Another Day in New Mexico

My apologies for not having a blog post this morning. There is no wireless data coverage here in Southeastern New Mexico for my iPad and therefore when I hit the "send" button on this morning's post, nothing happened! Today we traveled to Carlsbad, New Mexico, where we met up with a film crew from the Travel Channel. This crew is taping a show about "extreme tours" for the network and I'll have details on when the show will air as I get them.

Tomorrow we'll be heading to Carlsbad Caverns just up the road here and then on to Roswell for more sightseeing in this fabulous part of the country since prospects for storms tomorrow don't look good. There is a Slight Risk for storms in South Texas tomorrow, much like yesterday, but the forecast points toward more of an MCS-style storm scenario than a supercell one. Even if supercells do form down there, it's a very quick trip from where they'll be in Mexico (where we can't chase) through Texas to the Gulf of Mexico (where we can't chase for even more obvious reasons). So... We'll stay around here in Southeastern New Mexico where the mountains and ample moisture will provide storm chances for us tomorrow as we tour around the region. These won't be terribly severe, if at all, but this is probably our best chance to see storms given the lack of moisture around the Plains right now. Doesn't look like this pattern will break for the rest of the week unfortunately. As we head toward next week we're hopeful that things will change for the better.

Follow my updates on Twitter and Facebook throughout my chase!

6/5 - 11:30pm - Back in Louisville!

After a great month of storm chasing in the Plains, I'm back home in Louisville. This week will be one of rest as I recuperate from the lack of sleep, fast food, and long days that accompany the art of storm chasing. I traveled 10,830 miles over the past month across the Plains and I'm happy to be home again after so long a distance.

I'm heading out to the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, TN late next week followed by a week on the Florida Gulf Coast, so I'll try to see if I can get a video compilation of my chase put together before then. Should be fun to go through all the video I shot!

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!

5/28 - 11:45pm MDT - An End to a Great Week!

Not one thunderstorm developed in Wyoming today while we were out there. The cap (warm layer of air above the surface that inhibits storm development) was on too tight today and all the cumulus cloud development we saw was suppressed. Storms didn't even develop in North Dakota as forecast due to capping issues and surface winds becoming westerly earlier than forecast. At least we had a nice tour of Southeast Wyoming!

Storm Chasing Adventure Tours is saying goodbye to the guests on tour 4 tomorrow morning here in Denver and welcoming our new guests for tour 5 tomorrow night. Tour 5 is going to be very big, with 24 people in four SUVs. I won't be the only Kentuckian out here for much longer either. WAVE 3 TV meteorologist and good friend Kevin Harned from Louisville will arrive here tomorrow to begin chasing with us as a driver and forecaster.

It looks like we'll start out chasing on Sunday in either Kansas, Oklahoma, or the Texas Panhandle. A pair of disturbances pushing through the Plains next week should make most of the week pretty active, but there may be a couple down days.

5/22 - 2pm CDT - Switching Out Tour Groups

Today is a day of rest in Amarillo as we say goodbye to the guests on Tour 3 and welcome our new guests on Tour 4 this evening. As usual we'll be having our orientation meeting tonight at the hotel and then going out to dinner at The Big Texan restaurant here in town. This past week will go down as one of the most exciting we've had out here because of our close tornado intercepts in Oklahoma on Wednesday. Media-wise it was very busy this week as well. I did a live phone interview on The Weather Channel on Wednesday and my video from our tornado intercepts aired on Thursday and Friday.

Will next week be as active as this week was? I think the answer is yes based on some of the latest computer modeling. Southwest flow aloft will continue throughout much of the High Plains next week, meaning shear and cold air aloft will be adequate for severe weather in parts of Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, and Colorado. That's quite a contrast from the last two weeks when we've been mostly in Texas and Oklahoma. I don't see any huge outbreaks in the near future, but I think tomorrow could be quite active in Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota. The Storm Prediction Center has already placed the Nebraska/South Dakota border under a 30% Slight Risk area for severe weather, but they note that it could be nightfall before storms affect that area. We'll probably target an area south of where the 30% risk due to high cloud bases up there, which are not good for tornadoes. I'll have a full update tomorrow morning!

5/7 - 4:30pm - Leaving for Storm Chasing Tomorrow!

I'm flying out to Amarillo, TX tomorrow morning to begin my month-long Plains storm chasing trip with Storm Chasing Adventure Tours. We'll start chasing on Sunday, but I think the real action could come on Monday when an outbreak of supercell thunderstorms could affect Central Oklahoma and Kansas. I'll be posting updates, pictures, and HD video clips from our chase right here on my blog until June 5th when I come back to Louisville. Don't forget that you can get up-to-the-minute updates from my trip by following me on Twitter or friending me on Facebook.

I made a visit to WAVE-TV today in Louisville to do an on-camera interview for a storm chasing news piece that will air on or around May 21st.

Meteorologist Kevin Harned (who interviewed me today) will be joining us on our chase from May 29th to June 5th. It's going to be great fun to have two guys from Louisville out there looking for tornadoes!


A strong line of thunderstorms will make it's way through the Louisville area tonight, bringing with it the possibility of damaging winds, hail, and maybe even a tornado. Even without the thunderstorms, a Wind Advisory is in effect until 8pm. There's a greater risk of severe weather tonight in Indiana and into Ohio with the possibility of tornadoes up that way (tornado risk probabilities from the SPC are posted to the left). From East Mississippi, to Louisville, and to the Great Plains, severe weather seems to follow me around!

I'll post here tomorrow when I get to Amarillo and I'll also post a few travel updates on Twitter and Facebook if you want to see where I am!

5/6 - 3pm - Only One Day Left!

It's hard to believe that tomorrow is my last full day in Louisville before I leave for my storm chasing trip on Saturday morning. I'll be heading out to Amarillo, TX to start my month-long journey throughout the Plains in search of severe weather with Storm Chasing Adventure Tours. Remember, I'll be making daily blog posts with HD storm video, pictures, and chase reports. You can also follow me on Twitter or Facebook to get up-to-the-minute chase updates, meaning you'll be the first to know if we see a tornado!

We may be heading to West Texas on Sunday, our first day, to chase any supercells that form there, but conditions are looking ripe for a good-sized severe weather outbreak in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas on Monday, which will be our second day of chasing. Instability (CAPE) values approaching 3000 J/kg, bulk shear of over 60 kt, and dewpoints near 70 degrees will really get things going late Monday afternoon. My guess right now is that we'll probably position ourselves somewhere in Central Oklahoma in the morning and wait to see where the winds begin to turn from the east. Winds during the morning hours should be from the South and Southeast, but areas that begin to back to the east will have the most potential for tornadoes. We may end up anywhere from Kansas to North Central Texas depending on how conditions evolve. The Storm Prediction Center has already outlined the potential severe weather outbreak in their 4-8 day outlook.

Back home here in Louisville, there's a 15% risk of severe weather tomorrow. We may see some severe storms tomorrow evening as a cold front approaches the region, bringing with it the risk of hail, high wind, and possibly a tornado or two. The bigger risk of severe weather will be to our northeast in Ohio, where instability values, shear, and moisture will be higher. Definitely something to keep an eye on tomorrow, but I think it won't be near as bad around Kentuckiana tomorrow as some of the previous severe weather outbreaks we've seen over the past couple weeks around the Southeast.

12/23 - 3pm - Plains Blizzard, Snow in Louisville?

The big storm getting ready to spread rain around Louisville on Christmas Eve will slam into the Plains as a major snowstorm with blizzard conditions possible. Ice will be a big issue out there as well, especially in places nearer to the area of low pressure like Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska. Some places could end up with more than 20" of snow, especially in areas north of Nebraska. Winter Storm warnings and watches have been issued as the storm cranks up today.

Rain should begin in Louisville early tomorrow and taper off as we go through Christmas Day. I know it's a bummer to have rain around Christmas like this, but at least we won't have any travel problems around the region.

The next chance of snow could come just before the new year. A system on the long-range GFS computer model is still showing some potential for us, even though we are not forecast to get any snow as of now. The storm track at the moment is very far south of us, but the GFS model has been notorious for shifting suppressed storms northward a few days before the actual event. This happened with the current storm. As you may remember, the current Plains storm was supposed to track south of us and give us snow, but the northward trend took over and sent the storm west of the Mississippi River. My only concern with the potential New Year's storm is that we may have a surge of warm air from the south, which could limit our snow chances. It's really far out to be making any sort of detailed prediction at this point, but I think this storm will make a snowy impact on parts of the region.