In The Vortex

Tag: forecast

  • 05/12/09 Chase Forecast

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    Just when I was about to give up on the 2009 chase season, things have taken an about phase and it now appears I may be chasing for the next 4 days!

    Today holds potential practically in my backyard and another chance to chase for the TV station.  A nice dryline shaping up this afternoon and excellent clearing underway right now.  Both RUC and  NAM indicate some iteration of a dryline punch coming out in the Lubbock area.  NAM is not as pronounced.  CAPE stacking up on the nose of that to the northeast of Lubbock.

    The one thing I don’t like is that strong cap.  I have a feeling though it will bust in a couple of places and supercells should quickly result.  There may be some sort of a pseudo triple point in the area north or Lubbock where differential heating is occurring with the cloud cover to the north that should set up a decent baroclinic boundary that could act as a warm front and enhance low level rotation in any storms in that area.

    As such, my target is on the nose of whatever punch results today (right now I am seeing evidence of it on the West Texas Mesonet observations coming into the south plains southwest of Lubbock).  I’ll be heading to Lubbock, but I am thinking a better target might be Plainview, and as always, will adjust as necessary.

    As usual, I will be live streaming the chase today on the  LIVE ChaseCam!

  • 05/05/09 Chase Forecast

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    I am intentionally ignoring the majority of the SPC forecast and going out on a limb today.  SPC has forecast a moderate risk with a pretty decent risk for tornadoes along the Red River, where a warm front is expected to reside by this evening.  No doubt there will be some severe weather there this evening.  My concern is it being a mess, and if there are supercells them being embedded in said mess.  I’m also not entirely convinced that the warm front is getting that far north.  The entire area north of I20 is socked in by clouds even here just after noon.

    Instead I am concentrating on an area I have had my eye on for a couple of days, and that would be the area in Texas from about Post to Sweetwater to Abilene to Aspermont.  A small dryline bulge has been consistently depicted by the models today and now looks like that will occur in that area.  It’s already piling up a lot of favorable parameters in the southern edge of that target, and clearing on the southern edge which should set up a nice baroclinic zone as well.  I even see a cumulus field on satellite developing in the clearing.

    The strength of the cap is the big holdback, but at this time I feel like it will break.  In fact forecast models are breaking out a lone storm in that area this afternoon.  I will be gearing up and heading out for Snyder here shortly, and adjust as needed from there.  As always, I will be streaming the chase LIVE, right here on this website!

    http://daviddrummond.com/live-chasecam.html