4/14/2012
Introduction
Hello! This is my new blog dedicated to my storm chasing endeavors. I decided to start this up after talking with some of my Meteorology buddies in which I was not able to remember certain events (ie. Was I there for the Creston tornado?). So from now on (and hopefully I will go back to re-evaluate past events) I will post here so I can remember what I did and what my thinking was.
Synoptic set-up
On the morning of the 14th, there was a large trough over Western United States. Although not negatively tilted, a large jet streak was turning the corner and ejecting over the plains, providing plenty of PVA and difluence over the Central Plains (KS, NE, CO). At 850mb, There is strong LLJ advecting plenty of heat and moisture form The Gulf into the Southern and Central Plains. This is an incredible set-up and had been well foretasted by SPC and the models for several days prior.
Surface Obs (12Z)
At the surface, a front that was lifting the day before across Kansas has stalled over northern Kansas. Over the night the dry-line retreated form Central Texas and was situated from the Low through NM and Western Texas. Satalite and radar showed a mass of storm over east KS and all of MO. Winds in the warm sector was out of the SW advecting tons of heat and moisture. SPC meso-analysis shows over 300 m^2/s^2 0-1km Helicity in the war sector with over 400 in northern TX, and Oklahoma. SB Cape was over 1000 J/kg only over Texas with a fairly strong CAP.
Target
On the morning of the 14th, the models showed the system slowed down a bit. The warm front was not going to get as far North as originally thought. In the days prior, I was hoping to go to Omaha, NE. But now, with the warm front not lifting as far North and the low progged to go not as far east, I wanted to get somewhere between Lincoln and Grand Island. However, the Cap was forecast to erode early, so we were worried about morning convection, but we hoped that cleared out early and that convection would redevelop later along the warm front. The only reason we didn't want to drop south was to save on gas! (Although there was some concern that the dry-line did not have enough convergence - in OK and Southern KS)
How the day unfolded
As we got to Omaha around noon, elevated convetion began to fire in south-east NE and began to hail quickly. SPC's 11:30 outlook showed 45% hatched tornado propablitiy in E Nebraska, with the same thinking we had. However, the stroms quickly became rooted in the surface and began spinning. These storms were terrible to chase, however, as they were all HP monsters with rain-wrapped tornadoes. After almost getting hit by a tornado that we couldn't see (wrain-wrapped) in Deshler, NE (South of York), we headed West. By now (20Z) it was becoming apparent that the warm front was not going to advance any further North, nor was the low going to advance any further east. Since these storms were un-chasable, we decided our best bet was redevelopment along the dry/line triple pt. in south-west NE. We made it to Alma, NB when storms began to fire to the west. The storms were Sfc based, but could not get organized. The storms had somewhat good inflow, but kind of cold (Temperatures warmed back up into the low 70s).
As the sun went down however, the sfc cooled and the storms that we were on occluded and went elevated. The chase was over
Hindsight
Here is the storm reports (top) and the 0z analysis (bottom):
We should have dropped south. We probably could have caught the Salina tornado. However, at the time, I thought the morning convection would have affected northern Kansas just as bad as southern NE. I thought that the best play was to get to the dryline. We also could have gone North to the North Platt tornado, but I didn't think a storm north of the warm front would produce anything long enough for us to catch it. This is why I call this section hind-sight. As you can see above, the warm front stalled and even retreated in southern NE and the dry line didn't advance into NE unitl near sunset. Morning Convection stuck around too long and cooled the surface so SB CAPE was minimized. However, this day was well foretasted!
