Chase Season Open!

It's finally that time of year folks, we are a mere 10 hours away from meteorological spring and the opening of chase season 2014. Unfortunately, the weather doesn't seem to have gotten the memo and subfreezing temps for much of the northern and central Plains look likely for the next two weeks. The overall pattern does not look particularly favorable either, with another ridge setting up over the west coast with broad-scale troughing over the eastern CONUS. The gulf has taken quite a hit from the past few polar fronts which is concerning for early March, but it's so early that we will likely have recovery sometime in mid-March when the flow regime will hopefully change again.

But, even with all the terrible winter weather hanging around, it's still chase season!

New Chase Season Fast Approaching

It's the most wonderful time of the year. The beginning of the transition into spring and days that don't contain white death falling from the skies. While Norman received a blast of cold air and wintry precip (with temps likely plummeting into the single digits tomorrow), it's finally ok to be optimistic about the upcoming chase season. The long-range GFS and Euro have both been hinting at a  pattern shift that leaves the central and southern Plains under a much less amplified meridional flow regime giving the good likelihood of less polar fronts coming swooping down along with temps rising and moisture returning out of the gulf. While the drought to the west of here is still significant, these next two weeks of continued winter precip may help ease some of the effects of it on the storms. With any luck we'll be returning to a semi-normal storm season without two weeks in May deciding the quality of the year. A mere 24 days until the start of meteorological spring.