Update: May 22, 2008: The day has come. Heading towards west central Kansas shortly, for today, probably sw NE tomorrow around Arapahoe or so. Guess Saturday will be near there as well. Will likely return Saturday night late. They all look like potential big big days. Will try and update from the road after the chases.

Update: May 19, 2008: This coming pattern looks nuts to me. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday all look wonderful to me in sw NE...via the 0z GFS run tonight(NAM similar). Thursday and Friday both feature rather backed mid-levels(almost southerly), but this won't matter with such backed low levels too(about easterly surface). The low level turning is nuts, and there should be plenty of juice by high plains standards. Friday has the same degree of turning, but things tilted, with sw mid-levels and southerly low level jet. It's nuts to me that these nice conditions are in the same freaking spot each of these days! If I had to guess now I'd be in nw KS Thursday(far nw), moving into sw NE...then around Imperial NE Friday...then around Ogallala Saturday...LOL. Talk about not having to drive far(once there). I'm blowing off Wednesday at the moment, but it could turn out decent too, given some moisture makes it to Cheyenne and north. Sunday looks like another chase on the way back towards home. I'll be plenty happy with Thur-Sunday.

Looking more at Wednesday on the GFS, I'd almost feel like a fool to skip out on Cheyenne area that day, given it's so close to the following days and has a fair bit going for it now(cooler 700mb temps on the GFS....very strong low level upslope flow).

Update: May 16, 2008: Well, the GFS model is finally rapidly trending towards what the ECMWF has been showing for Wednesday onward next week. This period is now looking classic. I haven't seen anything with that much hope that time of year since 2004. Big western trough develops swinging strong disturbances out onto the plains, then pinwheeling them north a bit as a new piece comes down the back side from the west. You wind up with strong low pressure systems that want to stay fairly planted in the central plains, pulling moisture north for each wave as it comes out. No sense in bothering with details this far out, but it's looking STORMY....tornado alley stormy. I imagine it's possible to be chasing every day Wednesday through Saturday....maybe more depending on evolution. The ECMWF would suggest more. Time to stock up on tapes and finally get my camera sensor cleaned.

Update: May 15, 2008: Full account from last chase now up HERE.

Update: May 13, 2008: It's late(4 a.m) just got home. Here are a couple pictures for now from a supercell in se KS and sw MO. These from near Lamar MO. Storm pretty much sucked, but the lightning was intense at times. I will certainly have to post a video of some of the close bolts I got on video. I managed one close still.

Thanks to the fast storm speed, there wasn't much time to try to get lightning. I really wish I had put the video camera up for this one, taken south of Lamar MO. Above is a small crop from a 10mm shot. It's hitting about 2 blocks away. It was 100 ISO stopped down to F11. This would have been fine, but the dang thing pulsed probably 8 times. 100% crop below.

I could clearly see fire at the bottom of that main bolt while it pulsed away. Had I been thinking, I should have released the cable release before it did all those pulses. The strobing just blew the hell out of the main channel, especially up near the cloud base. Next time I'm going to make sure to mount the video camera. It would have been some very sweet footage. I know I got several others really close, mostly while driving.

Tried twilight from Lamar, but by the time I found a spot without powerlines, trees, hills and a place to actually park....the low clouds came in and ruined the show. They still look cool with the city lights on them.

More later.

Update: May 12, 2008: Looks like I'll be chasing the cold front in eastern KS tomorrow. I don't see a whole lot to chase for a while after this, so I figure I'd better go. I like western TX better tomorrow, but not enough to spend $300 in gas to chase it. I normally don't care for cold fronts as things get undercut and line out quickly, but there may be some hope with this one. It'd be nice to keep the mid-level flow as veered as possible to the west to try and get storms off the cold front...that usually doesn't happen, but looks like a fair chance at this tomorrow. Plenty of shear for supercells, and some real good moisture prog'd to return rapidly to the area. If the surface low stays more organized and one can get something ahead of it a bit, it'll be in a really nice environment off the cold front. Who knows, it's worth a shot, and if nothing else may be some rather mean cold front storms. If I had to guess I'll probalby wind up south of Kansas City ahead of things a good bit. Seems more often than not I regret being on initation instead of being a little later and targetting any longer lived storm.

Finally some good signs on the models towards the end of May. That Pacific ridge may break down a bit and let some real troughs setup across the west.

Update: May 7, 2008:

Account for this one now up HERE.

Been awhile since I posted any updates. I was on the May 1st supercell in se SD, but wasn't really that cool, so I never made a post on it. Yesterday I was on the tornado warned supercell in northern NE, which was pretty long lived. Road options screwed me early, but I caught it again at Bartlett, where it just about produced. GR3 kept saying 3.25 and 3.75 inch hail with it, and it's a long ways from radars there. I'm setting out to lose all my windows this year, just so I can have some crazy hail video and experience it...but it wasn't to be. I tried. Then it was a race to get ahead of the growing intense line. It had some crazy differential motions along the shelf...which wasn't long yet. Then I had an intense dust devil go across right in front of my car. Here are a couple images of it as it's right of me, south of the highway, not far away. More later.

Contact Me