5/8 - 12:10am CDT - Today's Texas Storms

Our initial target area near San Angelo, Texas quickly soured as storms fired early in the day just after noon. This was because the environment was not capped enough, meaning warm air aloft was not present to limit storm development and isolate it so only the strongest updrafts would survive. Since all the storms fired at once, and especially in an area where winds were becoming northerly aloft, they merged into a large mesoscale convective system (MCS) that moved toward San Antonio and Austin. Before the MCS formed, the individual storms did have some rotation and supercellular characteristics. Check out this panorama of a severe storm with rotation just south of San Angelo I took earlier today below.

Once we left that batch of storms, we surged westward to the Fort Stockton and Pecos, Texas area where easterly winds and storms forming to the higher elevations to the west had the best chance to become isolated supercells. One of these cells moving due east (a "right mover") looked very promising for quite a few hours, but an outflow boundary from the eastern batch of storms near San Angelo that we were chasing contaminated the environment that the storm was in. This was surprising given that outflow boundaries are almost always a good thing since they can enhance low-level shear and create lift to eithe create other storms or enhance existing ones. The fact of the matter was that this outflow boundary was much too strong because it had a very large area of rain-cooled air from the storms to the east. This acted more like an airmass than a boundary, and the subsequent little isolated storms that formed after the initial right-moving cell we saw in West Texas did not grow as they could have because the environment was contaminated. It was a beautiful afternoon though, and the storm below is the last one we saw before heading to our hotel.

As we headed to our hotel we saw a great lightning show from storms that formed over higher elevations to our south. The lightning was fairly frequent and there were quite a few cloud-to-ground strikes. I was able to get one of my best-ever lightning shots during our time watching these storms, which you'll see to the right. Lightning photography requires patience, knowing your way around your camera, and luck. Tonight's patience paid off!

Tomorrow looks like another day in Texas or one in New Mexico. There are two target areas we're monitoring, one of them in Southern Texas and the other in West Texas and Southern New Mexico. Southern Texas would be a setup where we target storms near the same cold front we've been chasing southward for the past two days whereas New Mexico/West Texas will be more of an upslope storm situation with lower (but not inadequate) dew points. The Storm Prediction Center has outlined these two areas with a Slight Risk in their Day 2 outlook, but this may need adjusting by tomorrow morning. I'll have our latest chase forecast on here tomorrow morning!

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5/7 - 10am CDT - On Our Way to South Texas

The same cold front that we targeted yesterday in Kansas and Oklahoma is on the move southward and so are we. We're on our way to South Texas this morning to meet up with where the front, the dry line (boundary between moist air to the east and dry air to the west), surface heating, easterly winds, and moisture all meet up. Storms should fire along the front and/or dry line this afternoon as instability builds. You'll see in the image to the right that there's a sliver of high dew points that will develop in Southwest Texas this afternoon that will be our focus as the cold front moves south.

Due to the threat of severe storms this afternoon, the Storm Prediction Center has issued a Slight Risk area for portions of South Texas with a 2% tornado risk (pictured left). Some of these storms will have large hail and damaging winds. The tornado risk, like yesterday, looks fairly low due to weak winds aloft, but the directional wind shear will help out as well as high instability. There may just be enough ingredients to spawn one or two tornadoes today down there, so we'll cross our fingers and keep driving!

As usual, I'll be posting up-to-the-minute storm chasing updates on my Twitter and Facebook accounts today.

5/6 - 11:45pm CDT - Bust Today in Kansas, Texas Tomorrow

A layer of cirrus clouds really but a damper on our chase today as they blocked storms from forming along a cold front that was in the process of moving through Central Kansas and Northwest Oklahoma. The cold front also accelerated, which didn't help since areas that were prime for development had their warm, moist air swept out quickly. Storms did develop in Northeast Kansas today, but the potential up there for the best isolated storms was considerably less than where we were based on the data we use. Those storms were clustered together as expected, but a couple were able to get out by themselves for a bit and get a little rotation (one dropped a funnel cloud that possibly touched down briefly near Kansas City). At the end of the afternoon we ended up getting on I-35 and making our way south toward Texas where we want to be for tomorrow. Check out the nice sunset in the image on the right from Oklahoma City!

Tomorrow we'll likely be somewhere around South Central Texas, where the dry line will be the focus for storm development. Moisture will be plentiful there since the front we chased near today will not have swept through Texas yet. The dry line will not be terribly sharp in the area in question tomorrow according to the 0z NAM model. We really want that sharp dry line so that it provides good lift for storm development, but we'll see how it pans out tomorrow morning. The Storm Prediction Center's latest severe weather outlook has a Slight Risk for areas east of Fort Stockton tomorrow, but my hunch is that it may move east a little bit in their next outlook based on some of the data I've seen this evening. We'll look at the data tomorrow morning and I'll post on here once we're on the road!

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5/6 - 10:45am CDT - First Chase of the 2012 Season

Today we're headed to South Central Kansas for our first chase of the year. This is where a cold front will be moving through later on today that will provide a focus for severe storm development. What we're watching right now is an area of easterly winds near Wichita associated with a secondary low along the front. These winds will help to enhance directional wind shear (difference in wind direction at the surface compared to aloft) and may give us a hint of a chance at seeing a tornado.

 

Like I said in last night's post, the tornado risk isn't very big today because the winds aloft aren't that fast. You need these fast winds aloft to blow the downdraft with the cooling rain away from the updraft where the warm, moist air enters the storm. With the directional shear that I talked about though and some very strong instabilty, that may be able to compensate a bit for the lack of upper-level winds. Things like outflow boundaries from other storms may also help to get some low-level rotation going in a storm or two. Because of this the Storm Prediction Center has issued a 2% tornado risk for eastern portions of Oklahoma and Kansas.

 

We're also watching the visibile satellite view today because there is an area of slightly clearer skies in Kansas near where the winds are optimal at the moment. There are still quite a few high-level clouds, which may inhibit development a bit, but that shouldn't be much of a problem today. Storms will be clustered and mostly disorganized today thanks to that lack of good winds aloft and the cold front providing a broad area of lift. The trick will be if we can find any embedded organized storms with supercellular characteristics that might want to produce a weak tornado. We'll see how it goes!

Be sure to follow my up-to-the-minute updates on Twitter and Facebook today.

5/5 - 11:55pm CDT - Interesting Setup Tomorrow

A cold front moving through the Plains tomorrow will provide the focus for severe storm development during our first chase day. This front has really slowed down on the computer models over the past day or so and this is good because it will allow the warm sector environment to to east of it to become richer with potential due to solar heating. Something the NAM model has been consistently picking up on is the development of a small, sharp shortwave moving through Oklahoma during the afternoon. This shortwave generates a secondary low on that model that creates some pretty good directional shear over Central Oklahoma. Couple that with some incredible instability due to the high moisture in the area and you've got an interesting little severe weather setup to chase. This setup has shifted around from North Texas to East Kansas over the past few model runs, but it seems to be stabilizing over Central Oklahoma for now. The tornado risk tomorrow originally looked very slim due to the lack of good wind speed aloft, but now it is becoming hard to ignore the good directional shear and the great instability. So while it still isn't a high tornado risk, I would venture to say that one or two may touch down if indeed this area of good directional shear sets up.

I'll have an update tomorrow morning on how the setup has evolved and where we'll be targeting. Follow my up-to-the-minute updates on Twitter and Facebook.

5/5 - 6am EDT - Off to Oklahoma City!

This morning I'm getting on my flight to Oklahoma City from Louisville! Once I arrive later this morning I'll be going to our hotel to begin preparing for tonight's orientation meeting with our first group of tour guests for the year. We'll talk about safety, how storm chasing works, and where we'll likely be headed tomorrow for our first chase day. After that we'll go out to dinner and get a good night's sleep for tomorrow's chase.

I'll post about tomorrow's chase setup later this evening. It's going to be a busy day!


Keep up with me for the latest chase updates on Twitter and Facebook this week!
 

5/4 - 11pm EDT - The Chase Begins Tomorrow!

Tomorrow's the day! Early in the morning I'll be departing Louisville for Oklahoma City where I'll meet up with Storm Chasing Adventure Tours for the first tour of the season. My duties this year include briefing our tour guests, assisting our leader Todd with technology and forecasting, and managing the web and social media presence of the company while out there. Each day from tomorrow on to May 26th I'll be generating blog posts filled with forecast discussions, chase recaps, photos, video, and much more. The links to our LIVE streaming video feed, my social media accounts, and more are to the right of this blog post. It's needless to say that I'm eagerly waiting to get on the road!

With three weeks of motels, hotels, and long drives each day, what does a storm chaser pack? The short answer is, well, lightly. While on the road I need to be able to shoot video and photos, access weather data, keep our tour guests apprised of what's going on weather-wise, and update everyone back home on what we're doing via this blog and social media. This sounds like it would require a ton of equipment, but it really doesn't anymore. Even over the past five years that I've been storm chasing I've watched technology march along to the point where I can carry just a few pieces of crucial equipment to get this done. Below is a picture of what I'm packing in my bag equipment-wise right now, minus my laptop and iPad:

The orange Tide detergent and sunscreen bottles stick out like a sore thumb in that photo, but a storm chaser has to have clean clothes and unburned skin right? A few things of note are my HD camcorder (very right in bag), my still camera (bottom center black case), storm chasing books for tour guests to read on the long drives, and all the wires that make my ability to share weather data with tour guests and the world possible.

A lot of folks ask me how I can stand being on the road for so long and why I do this. My passion for weather, a love of travel, and a child-like excitement for learning and teaching others keep me going during these weeks. There's not a day that goes by during the off-season that I don't think about storm chasing and how much fun it is. Much like my work in television, being able to tell our storm chasing tour guests about the weather in the mornings requires a great deal of skill. I've been doing this since I was 17, so in a way I grew up a little bit in Tornado Alley and what I learned during these years has really thrust my knowledge forward to the point where I can now share it with others in a meaningful way. It's going to be an adventurous few weeks as we start the storm chasing season!

Be sure to check back here on the blog for the next three weeks and follow me on Twitter and Facebook for up-to-the-minute progress on our chase.