4/14 - 2:30pm - Nice West TN Weekend, Outbreak in the Plains

Sunday Night storms on NAM Model

It's a nice weekend across West Tennessee with warmer temperatures and breezy conditions. Another day of 80-degree weather is on the way for Sunday, but storms will roll through the region on Sunday night into Monday morning. Some of these storms could be a little strong, but they shouldn't be terribly severe, if at all, since they will be weakening as they approach the Mississippi River. Rain chances should subside completely after Tuesday and sunshine with highs in the 70's will be with us through the middle portion of the workweek. Check out my video from this morning below for more details!



A potent severe weather outbreak is just getting started in the Plains right now. Areas from Nebraska to Oklahoma are under a rare High Risk of severe weather from the Storm Prediction Center and violent tornadoes are expected this afternoon and evening. Already we've had quite a few reports of tornadoes touching down and doing damage in Kansas this afternoon, and more of the same can be expected as this system pulls more moisture northward and destabilization continues. On the left you'll see the latest EHI chart from the SPC, which is a measure of helicity (spinning motion in the atmosphere) and instability. This is a decent indicator of where the strongest tornadoes could form. It's really ramping up with values as high as 7 in Oklahoma right now, but those values are expected to increase and possibly move northward this afternoon and evening into Kansas and Nebraska.

Be sure and join me again on WBBJ for 7 Eyewitness News at 6 and 10pm tonight!

5/25 - 11:30am CDT - Heading to Eastern Colorado / HIGH Risk East

After a very active day of chasing, we're heading to Eastern Colorado to prepare for tomorrow's risk of upslope storms in that area. Yesterday we drove 362 miles across Oklahoma while chasing and you can see a couple pictures and some video that I shot in the post below.


A HIGH Risk of severe weather has been issued by the SPC for West Tennesee, Western Kentucky, Southeast Missouri, Southern Illinois, Southwest Indiana, and Northwest Arkansas. Just a quick look at some data this morning reveals high dew points and winds backing to the south across the region. The satellite picture is also clear for most of Kentucky and Tennessee, so instability is building quite a bit already this morning. Cities like Jackson and Memphis in Tennessee, Paducah, Owensboro, and Louisville in Kentucky, Jonesboro, Arkansas, St. Louis, Missouri, and Evansville, Indiana need to be on high alert for a possible tornado threat this evening.

5/24 - 11:45am CDT - HIGH Risk in Oklahoma

Yet another tornado outbreak is on the way in the United States today and this time we're going to be smack-dab in the middle of it. A strong cut-off area of low pressure moving across the Plains this afternoon will provide the needed moisture-laden surface winds from the southeast and dry, pushing air from the southwest to create a sharp dry line that will be the focus for storm development this afternoon. Instability values will be off the charts as the cap (thunderstorm-inhibiting layer of warm air above the surface) breaks sometime during the middle of the afternoon. Temperatures aloft today will be slightly warmer than yesterday, so storms should stay isolated, especially south of the Kansas border. Locations near that border will most likely see a similar situation to yesterday, when tons of developing storms merged into an un-chaseable complex. There's a bit of a cloud shield situated vertically across the central part of the state this morning, but it should clear out fairly quick.


The Storm Prediction Center has issued a rare HIGH Risk for Oklahoma and Southern Kansas because of how potent this setup looks. The issuance of a HIGH Risk may not seem rare because of all the destructive outbreaks that have happened this year, but overall they don't issue one but once or twice at the most in a normal season. The risk includes a 45% tornado risk (!), something that has only been used for the devastating April 27th tornado outbreak in the South this year. Needless to say, expectations are high and a lot of folks are nervous around here. We're getting in position right now in Oklahoma and making adjustments as necessary based on conditions.


With such a huge outbreak expected, today is certainly the day that you need to follow me on Facebook and Twitter for my latest chase updates and photos if you haven't already.

5/24 - 6am CDT - Great Supercell Yesterday, HIGH Risk Today

We chased a supercell that formed near Ringwood, Oklahoma yesterday for a few minutes until it merged with other storms and became weaker. We moved to a new isolated cell near Greenfield, OK and it persisted for a while with a few rotating wall clouds. It may not have produced a tornado, but it certainly had the capability and nearly did when one of these wall clouds tightened up considerably. Check out the video below to see it all happen!



The panorama below gives you an idea of how close the wall cloud came to the ground as its rotation tightened:

We traveled 366 miles yesterday on our chase, which took us from Woodward to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma:

The Storm Prediction Center has issued a HIGH Risk for severe weather tomorrow in Oklahoma and Kansas. We stayed in Oklahoma City last night, so we're not far from the action. There's a 30% tornado risk with this outlook, which is the first HIGH Risk of the year for the Plains.

Here's a snippet of the SPC's discussion for today:

VERY LARGE HAIL...DAMAGING WINDS...AND SEVERAL POTENTIALLY SIGNIFICANT TORNADOES APPEAR LIKELY AS THE STORMS INCREASE AND SPREAD ACROSS KS/OK INTO WRN AR AND THEN LATER INTO WRN MO.

I'll have an update later this morning with the latest SPC severe weather outlook and a discussion on today's outbreak along with our target area.

5/10 - 8pm CDT - Rough Day in Oklahoma

Today's severe outbreak in Oklahoma was not good for storm chasing. Our target area in Cherokee, OK was perfect and we were able to intercept a very powerful supercell that developed around 3:30pm, but we couldn't keep up with it because it was moving at over 50 mph and the road network around Cherokee was not good. That storm went on to produce a tornado near Wakita, OK, which ironically was where we were this morning visiting the Twister movie museum.

Once we lost that cell, we were able to intercept another supercell to our south. That storm produced a very distinct rotating wall cloud, but couldn't quite produce a tornado and quickly escaped from us. The baseball-size hail that fell from the downdraft of that storm shattered the windows of a car on I-35 northbound south of Perry, OK. We did encounter some hail from both supercells, but it was ping pong ball-size or less.

Parts of Oklahoma City, Wichita, KS, and numerous other locations throughout Oklahoma and Kansas were devastated by fast-moving tornadoes. So far there have been 33 reports of tornadoes today and I'm sure there will be many more. The pictures of the damage around Oklahoma City are just incredible with aerial imagery showing the wide paths that these tornadoes had.

From a technical standpoint, we did very well today. The target area we picked was right where these supercells got going and the first supercell we intercepted went on to produce a tornado after it got away from us. The problem was that everything was moving way too fast. We suspect that the first supercell we intercepted was moving at more than 60 mph, which is faster than we could travel on the roads we had. Had these storms moved at half the speed they were, we would have seen a tornado or two. The SPC's HIGH risk issuance this morning was spot-on given the amount of tornadoes that caused widespread damage throughout the region. Overall, this outbreak was not good for storm chasers out here due to the fast storm movement and certainly not good for the residents of areas that were damaged.

Tomorrow looks pretty good for chasing based on the latest computer models. It's looking like we'll be traveling to the Oklahoma/Texas border, probably around or north of Wichita Falls, TX. CAPE values will be surpassing 3000 J/kg again with adequate moisture and decent shear. Even better, the storms shouldn't be moving as fast! The SPC has issued a SLIGHT risk for this area as well. I'll post on here tomorrow morning as soon as we figure out exactly where we're going.

5/10 - 11am CDT - HIGH RISK Chasing Today!

We're in for a big day of storm chasing here in North Oklahoma as all the right elements com together for a sizable outbreak of severe weather. We just left our hotel in Blackwell, OK, where it's 54 degrees and visibilities are less than a mile due to fog and mist. As a warm front moves northward through Oklahoma, this may intensify before things clear out quickly early this afternoon. Once things clear out, it shouldn't be too long before we're picking a supercell to chase! Needless to say, the Storm Prediction Center has issued a rare HIGH risk for the area.

Things will be very active today because instability, shear, moisture, and numerous other factors are aligning pretty well. CAPE values well in excess of 3000 J/kg, dewpoints near 70, bulk shear (0-6km) over 70 kt, and the jet screaming overhead are going to set off some very intense supercell thunderstorms this afternoon. Some of these storms will go from small puffy cumulus clouds to monster storms within an hour because of the intense uplift. Needless to say, the feeling is electric out here and we're hoping that things materialize as forecast.

We'll be streaming LIVE video today at http://stormchasertv.com when storms start initiating. If you've just found my blog through John Belski's blog or another source, welcome! Follow me on Twitter or Facebook to to get the latest updates on our chase and see when we're streaming live video.

5/1 - 11am - Kentucky Derby & Severe Weather?

It's the first Saturday in May and we all know what that means in Louisville: The Kentucky Derby! The rain is still falling here, but I think we may catch a break around lunchtime and the sun may even come out. We'll see more rain after that brief clearing, but the latest RUC computer model runs are indicating another break in the rain around 6pm, when the Derby will run.

Severe weather has been a big issue to our southwest over the past 24 hours, but the Louisville area may see a few severe storms this afternoon and evening, especially if the sun comes out after the rain breaks this afternoon. Heavy rain will be making its way back into the region tonight, when we could have some flooding problems in the Ohio Valley. To the right is the expected rainfall estimate for today and tomorrow from the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center, which shows Louisville getting over 6" of rain.

A rare High Risk of severe weather has been issued for parts of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee today due to the threat of strong, long-tracked tornadoes. This is the third time in a week that a High Risk has been issued by the Storm Prediction Center. Tornado watches have been issued for these areas, including the region around Mississippi State University. This comes after last night's severe weather troubles in Arkansas, where tornadoes damaged homes and caused at least one fatality. Big time flooding is occurring in Memphis right now, with more rain on the way this afternoon and evening.

With all of this severe weather going on I nearly forgot that we are exactly one week away from the start of my month-long storm chasing trip! I'll be leaving Louisville on May 8th to go storm chasing with Storm Chasing Adventure Tours. Don't miss my blog posts and updates from May 8th to June 5th!

7/20 - 1pm - SLIGHT Risks

We're on the edge of a SLIGHT risk for severe storms from the SPC today and in the middle of one tomorrow. The radar shows some storm activity in Southern Indiana that's making its way toward us, so we should see some rain by mid-afternoon at the latest. Other storms could pop up as well, but so far nothing looks severe.

Tomorrow still looks pretty active with that SLIGHT risk. We had a joke going when I was storm chasing that a SLIGHT risk day was always worse than a HIGH risk day... which turned out to be true on two occasions on that trip. Anyway, we should see an MCS line of thunderstorms roll through here tomorrow afternoon or evening with gusty winds and heavy rain. There's a possibility that we could see some smaller, more broken storms as well, but I'm not real keen on it. I think we're going to see what we've been seeing all summer: a couple weak cells in front of a semi-strong MCS (Mesoscale Convective System - a line of storms).

6/5 - 10pm CDT - Big Bust...

We drove from Woodward, OK to Yankton, SD to get in the most prime super cell development area as recommended by the surface conditions and the SPC. All we saw was a small line of storms. Not one super cell showed up in this area. What happened to the HIGH risk!? Well, an area of low pressure that was forecast to stay in Kansas decided to move into Central Nebraska. That messed up the whole works. The stable flow of east winds shifted around quite a bit and that made multiple areas of storms fire and then combine. It was a storm chaser's nightmare on radar. There was a little bit of tornadic activity in Kansas and other areas south of us, but nothing near what the SPC had prognosticated. So we drove over 500 miles to see a little gust front and a few drips of rain. Ouch!

Tomorrow's risk shifts east, so we're going to head back to Denver so all of us can fly out Saturday. It's sad that we didn't see anything good today, but at least Sunday and Monday had some remarkable weather.

6/5 - 9:15am CDT - Yet Another HIGH RISK...

Before I go into today's mess, here's some pictures of the Twister Museum from yesterday:

The original Dorothy I probe from Twister (pretty good looking prop!).

We also visited the Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma as well:

Now, today looks like the best day all week (two weeks maybe). The SPC has issued a HIGH risk for severe weather in a vast area in the Plains. We're headed to the Nebraska-Kansas border in search of the highest possibility of storms. The cells (when they form) will move very fast, so we'll have to really be on our toes when chasing them. They'll also form later in the day, say after 5pm or so. I can't be sure that we'll see a tornado, but I think we'll at least see some impressive super cells.

You can track our position later this afternoon at:

http://www.spotternetwork.org/google.php

Just look for the "stormchasing.com" vehicle icon on the map.

5/29 - 9:30am CDT - HIGH RISK!!!

As we drove along yesterday toward Colby, KS, I was looking at instability and shear models. I got a pretty good idea that we'd be in Central to Eastern Nebraska today. So I went to bed in my humble Super 8 motel room with the pleasant thought that we could have a pretty good day today. Out of curiosity this morning when I woke up, I got on the SPC website, expecting to see a MODERATE risk for today. Instead I got more than I bargained for: a HIGH risk. A HIGH risk is only issued just a handful of times per year. Conditions have to be really ripe for tornadoes and super cells for the SPC to go this far.

Basically the SPC is calling for a super cell festival in Eastern NE and Western IA. We were all very giddy getting into the SUVs this morning and the conversation was lively at McDonald's for breakfast. Whether or not the actual tornadoes manifest is a different story. We're a little concerned that the surface winds are a little too uniformly out of the SE for an outbreak, but it is still very early and there could be a shift to the east later on. Until we see a change in winds, we're going to follow the bulk of the moisture coming into Central Nebraska.

Today could be the day!