Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Central Texas Supercell
Several days late on this, but this past Saturday (March 15) I ended up getting a decent supercell NW of Coleman, TX after ditching the crapvection that was further east around the initial target of Comanche. Great way to start the season, with 680 miles already under my belt. We also got some monster hail just NE of Coleman after the storm passed off to the east. All in all, a great day. Chase log coming soon!
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Chase Prospects Returning Next Week & This Weekend
After spending part of March wringing my hands and viewing models, it appears the first signs of life in the season may be present at the end of next week. The GFS has been hinting at a neutral wave coming out of the Four Corners region with broad moisture return across Texas next Saturday. While details remain fuzzy, a sharp dryline looks like it'll set up that morning in the far western Texas panhandle with low-60s dews reaching Vernon, TX by 12Z.
Even though issues and poor resolution continue to plague this "setup", more details should come in over the next few days as it enters the 180 hr range. I'm not particularly enamored with where the GFS has been taking the best moisture over the past two runs, but it's exciting to finally have something viable in terms of svr weather.
Add-on: This coming Saturday (March 15) looks interesting per the NAM and other mid-range models. Forecast Skew-T for Stephenville looks mildly interesting excluding the terrible mid-levels.
Even though issues and poor resolution continue to plague this "setup", more details should come in over the next few days as it enters the 180 hr range. I'm not particularly enamored with where the GFS has been taking the best moisture over the past two runs, but it's exciting to finally have something viable in terms of svr weather.
Add-on: This coming Saturday (March 15) looks interesting per the NAM and other mid-range models. Forecast Skew-T for Stephenville looks mildly interesting excluding the terrible mid-levels.
Friday, February 28, 2014
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!
But, even with all the terrible winter weather hanging around, it's still chase season!
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
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.
Friday, January 10, 2014
October 4 2013 Chase Log
October 4 2013
James Gustina
Summary: The marginal play on the dryline in western Oklahoma pays off huge. Chased with Andrew Lyons and Cj Sayre. Couldn't make it north to Nebraska for the tornadofest but got an amazing mothership supercell west of Clinton in the last hour before sunset. Best chase of the season for me.
This day began to show up on the long range models about a week out. All indications were that a tornado outbreak would be possible from Nebraska to Iowa. But what caught our eye was the dryline with modest instability on the order of 1500 j/kg MLCAPE along the dryline ahead of the cold front in far western Oklahoma. After debating it the night before, we finally made plans to head out to a preliminary target of Elk City around noon.
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We made great time and ended up playing the waiting game at the McDonald's in Elk City for a few hours. Storms were beginning to fire back north along the cold front near Woodward and tempted as we were, we decided to stay south along the dryline. We began to move north and east when a first tower exploded directly over our heads in Elk City.
We followed this first tower north of Elk City until it began to shrivel up and die, but not before it spat out some rain and I took a little praire grass barb to the foot. I guess that's what I get for wearing sandals on a chase.
But initiation was already underway all up and down the dryline/cold front. We continued north around Foss Lake (which would prove to be a tough obstacle on a return trip) and after passing through Butler, continued east and north, which ended up giving us an amazing view of the developing storms to the west and southwest.
After the storm to our immediate west fizzled we took another look at the storm to the southwest near Sayre. It appeared to be taking on the "shape" of a storm that had unimpeded inflow and might have a shot at giving something pretty. Man were we right. We opted not to go after the garbage to the north on the cold front and after taking a lengthy detour around Foss Lake, core punched the storm and came out directly under it's base. Thankfully there was only weak rising motion as the lowest level appeared too stable and the RFD too cold for tornadogenesis. As we got out ahead of it, we were treated to an amazing view of a mothership updraft.
After the above shots, we hauled ass out of there and attempted to get as far east on I-40 as we could to get shots of the amazingly structured storm. It was weakly supercellular at best, but just west of Clinton, it gave some great photographic opportunities.
It was truly a great way to end out what had been less than a stellar season for me. After missing the final two weeks of May on a family vacation to the west, it was great to have something that was truly amazing to finish it out.
Chase Stats
Miles Driven: 290.2
Cost: $20
Tornadoes: 0
Hail: 1/4"
Wind: 40 mph (estimated in core)
James Gustina
Summary: The marginal play on the dryline in western Oklahoma pays off huge. Chased with Andrew Lyons and Cj Sayre. Couldn't make it north to Nebraska for the tornadofest but got an amazing mothership supercell west of Clinton in the last hour before sunset. Best chase of the season for me.
This day began to show up on the long range models about a week out. All indications were that a tornado outbreak would be possible from Nebraska to Iowa. But what caught our eye was the dryline with modest instability on the order of 1500 j/kg MLCAPE along the dryline ahead of the cold front in far western Oklahoma. After debating it the night before, we finally made plans to head out to a preliminary target of Elk City around noon.
We made great time and ended up playing the waiting game at the McDonald's in Elk City for a few hours. Storms were beginning to fire back north along the cold front near Woodward and tempted as we were, we decided to stay south along the dryline. We began to move north and east when a first tower exploded directly over our heads in Elk City.
We followed this first tower north of Elk City until it began to shrivel up and die, but not before it spat out some rain and I took a little praire grass barb to the foot. I guess that's what I get for wearing sandals on a chase.
But initiation was already underway all up and down the dryline/cold front. We continued north around Foss Lake (which would prove to be a tough obstacle on a return trip) and after passing through Butler, continued east and north, which ended up giving us an amazing view of the developing storms to the west and southwest.
After the storm to our immediate west fizzled we took another look at the storm to the southwest near Sayre. It appeared to be taking on the "shape" of a storm that had unimpeded inflow and might have a shot at giving something pretty. Man were we right. We opted not to go after the garbage to the north on the cold front and after taking a lengthy detour around Foss Lake, core punched the storm and came out directly under it's base. Thankfully there was only weak rising motion as the lowest level appeared too stable and the RFD too cold for tornadogenesis. As we got out ahead of it, we were treated to an amazing view of a mothership updraft.
After the above shots, we hauled ass out of there and attempted to get as far east on I-40 as we could to get shots of the amazingly structured storm. It was weakly supercellular at best, but just west of Clinton, it gave some great photographic opportunities.
It was truly a great way to end out what had been less than a stellar season for me. After missing the final two weeks of May on a family vacation to the west, it was great to have something that was truly amazing to finish it out.
Chase Stats
Miles Driven: 290.2
Cost: $20
Tornadoes: 0
Hail: 1/4"
Wind: 40 mph (estimated in core)
September 27 2013 Chase Log
September 27 2013
James Gustina
Summary: A marginal setup with some tornadic potential in the eastern panhandle. Chased with Brady Kendrick catching some grungy crap just east of Groom as well as an awesome monster shelf just west of Alanreed. Lack of capping ruined what would have been an otherwise good day on the Caprock.
This day began showing up on the GFS several days in advance. Moisture return seemed to be a problem that would plague this setup along with almost no capping to speak of. But the day of, dewpoints in and along the Caprock canyons and along I-40 reached the mid-60s. At this, Brady and I decided to pull the trigger. Shear was modest but decent enough for a semi-discrete storm to get something going if it hit the deeper moisture pooling in the Caprock. We headed out of Norman around two, with an initial target of Groom.
We made it through the construction from hell pretty well just outside OKC and made our first stop on the other side of the state line in Shamrock at the Taco Bell. We ran into Jon there with two freshmen from OU. After shooting the breeze for awhile, we all moved west to Groom while the first storms were just beginning to take shape down by Tulia. We made it to Groom as the first storms came out of Palo Duro and became severe warned. Unfortunately, the storms had no shot at becoming even close to supercellular with the storms congealing into a line very quickly. We decided to move back east of Groom (I didn't get to see the giant cross unfortunately) and set up just off I-40 to watch the storms move in. Coincidentally enough, it was exactly where Brady had been three years earlier to watch the Groom tornado move to his south on April 22nd of 2010. We watched the storms for awhile as they puttered around and spat out some decent lightning.
In the final two photos, it briefly looked like the storm was getting it's act together and attempting to spit out a wall cloud. In the first photo below it actually had some decent rising motion but unfortunately it quickly fell apart.
We then decided to call the chase, as it was apparent that none of the storms would get isolated enough to do anything of note. As we went east on 40, the storms fully congealed into a line, with the northern segment slightly bowing out. Brady and I pulled off just past the Gray County rest area and just west of Alanreed to get some shots. We got an amazing view of a mean looking shelf rolling off the Caprock in the distance.
Brady and I continued east, briefly stopping in Shamrock for some food before continuing back to Norman. We unfortunately missed a semi-discrete storm with some monster hail that came through Shamrock not thirty minutes later, but it was after dark and a Chevy Sonic in gorilla hail is a recipe for disaster. All in all, it wasn't a bad chase and even though I thought I was ending the season, a nice reward would come exactly a week later on October 4th.
Chase Stats
Miles Driven: 468
Cost: $20
Tornadoes: 0
Hail: None encountered
Wind: 35 mph outflow
James Gustina
Summary: A marginal setup with some tornadic potential in the eastern panhandle. Chased with Brady Kendrick catching some grungy crap just east of Groom as well as an awesome monster shelf just west of Alanreed. Lack of capping ruined what would have been an otherwise good day on the Caprock.
This day began showing up on the GFS several days in advance. Moisture return seemed to be a problem that would plague this setup along with almost no capping to speak of. But the day of, dewpoints in and along the Caprock canyons and along I-40 reached the mid-60s. At this, Brady and I decided to pull the trigger. Shear was modest but decent enough for a semi-discrete storm to get something going if it hit the deeper moisture pooling in the Caprock. We headed out of Norman around two, with an initial target of Groom.
We made it through the construction from hell pretty well just outside OKC and made our first stop on the other side of the state line in Shamrock at the Taco Bell. We ran into Jon there with two freshmen from OU. After shooting the breeze for awhile, we all moved west to Groom while the first storms were just beginning to take shape down by Tulia. We made it to Groom as the first storms came out of Palo Duro and became severe warned. Unfortunately, the storms had no shot at becoming even close to supercellular with the storms congealing into a line very quickly. We decided to move back east of Groom (I didn't get to see the giant cross unfortunately) and set up just off I-40 to watch the storms move in. Coincidentally enough, it was exactly where Brady had been three years earlier to watch the Groom tornado move to his south on April 22nd of 2010. We watched the storms for awhile as they puttered around and spat out some decent lightning.
In the final two photos, it briefly looked like the storm was getting it's act together and attempting to spit out a wall cloud. In the first photo below it actually had some decent rising motion but unfortunately it quickly fell apart.
We then decided to call the chase, as it was apparent that none of the storms would get isolated enough to do anything of note. As we went east on 40, the storms fully congealed into a line, with the northern segment slightly bowing out. Brady and I pulled off just past the Gray County rest area and just west of Alanreed to get some shots. We got an amazing view of a mean looking shelf rolling off the Caprock in the distance.
Brady and I continued east, briefly stopping in Shamrock for some food before continuing back to Norman. We unfortunately missed a semi-discrete storm with some monster hail that came through Shamrock not thirty minutes later, but it was after dark and a Chevy Sonic in gorilla hail is a recipe for disaster. All in all, it wasn't a bad chase and even though I thought I was ending the season, a nice reward would come exactly a week later on October 4th.
Chase Stats
Miles Driven: 468
Cost: $20
Tornadoes: 0
Hail: None encountered
Wind: 35 mph outflow
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