Closing in on Chase Season 2014

Well folks it's that time of year. We're under the two month mark until March 1st and the real heavy duty deprivation kicks in now. This is also when I have the tendency to make wild guesses about the quality of the season, but this time all I can guess is that this probably won't be worse than last season for me, where I missed basically the entire season by not being on the Plains for the final two weeks of May. But since I'm a glutton for punishment, I'll make a completely uneducated guess at this upcoming season based on objective drought monitors. This is the drought map from the US Drought Monitor site.

 Western Oklahoma and the Caprock seem to be leaving the grips of the crippling drought that's been persisting over the area the past few years. While SW Oklahoma is still in absolutely debilitating drought conditions, things are beginning to look up for the southern Plains. The dryline mixing east almost to I-35 by noon, while not entirely dependent on drought conditions, definitely had something to do with the overall quality of surface moisture. The other good news is the current flow regime. This time last year, we were already beginning to go between periods of zonal and extreme meridional flow which led to a jet stream that was further south than it should have been in mid-April, ultimately giving us the crashing polar cold fronts from the Great White North for most of April. Overall, I think it'll be an "average" season with good days sprinkled from March through late June across the bulk of the Plains. Here's hoping my random guess is actually right for once.