In The Vortex

Author: David Drummond

  • 05/19/10 Storm Chase Forecast

    Another potent day on tap for most of Western OK and down in to parts of North Central Texas as a dryline will move to along the eastern TX Panhandle/OK state line, and a warm from is lifting north across Oklahoma.

    The warm front is currently situated along the I40 corridor with what we call a triple point (where the warm front intersects the dryline) currently in the vicinity of Wheeler County, TX.

    The northward extent of severe weather will be tempered by the eventual location of the warm front by mid-late afternoon, but even farther south along the dryline, isolated monster supercells capable of extreme size hail larger than baseballs, strong tornadoes and damaging winds will still be possible.  Storms following the warm front in particular should be especially dangerous!

    Today has the potential to be yet another tornado outbreak for much of Oklahoma and even parts of North Central Texas.  Everyone have your weather radios on today and pay attention to local media sources.   Storms will be moving much slower today than they did during the last outbreak on Monday, which means you may have more lead time on warnings, but this unfortunately also means that giant hail and tornadoes will have more time over a given area to do more damage.

    I’ll be heading out the door shortly for far western Oklahoma, and will be streaming LIVE this afternoon on the LIVE ChaseCam, with AUDIO!

  • 05/18/10 Storm Chase Forecast

    Very potent severe weather day is shaping up for the Texas Panhandle and South Plains area with the possibility of tornadoes and hail to the size of softballs!

    Morning surface analysis shows dewpoints in the upper 50s across the area, which is more that sufficient moisture in the higher terrain of West Texas up on the caprock to get good storms going and forecast models show this increasing into the 60s by late today.

    A dryline should tighten up near the Texas/New Mexico state line by afternoon and provide a focus for storms to initiate.  Additionally, some old outflow boundaries from previous convection could also provide a focus, especially anywhere those intersect the dryline.

    Wind profiles should increase favorably for supercell development as the day wears on. RUC forecast model shows more than sufficient instability for tall, strong storms of the type to produce very large hail,  and the low level EHI (Energy Helicity Index) has a nice bullseye just west of Lubbock by 22z.  Any supercells today that interact with any of these  boundaries will certainly be capable of producing tornadoes, maybe even a strong one.

    From a storm chasing perspective, at least the storm motions will be relatively slow so they should be easy to keep up with.

    People living in the area should have your weather radios on today, and tune in to KCBD 11 for up to the minute information if you are on the South Plains in the Lubbock viewing area.

    I will be out in the field by early afternoon streaming live on the LIVE ChaseCam page!  Be safe today everyone!