I decided against chasing today because of the very very tiny window of getting something to initiate before it gets dark out. Overall the setup appears that it could produce a few tornadoes, the moisture is there as Enid is reporting a Td of 63 degrees at 2PM. There is a noticable dewpoint spread with a 63 degree dewpoint in Alva, OK and only a 38 degree dewpoint in Gage, OK, the difference between the towns is ~55 miles. The Spotter Network overlay on GRLevel3 is showing everybody and their mother out today banking on today's severe storm chances. As of this writing, there are a lot of chasers on I-40 between the OK/TX state line and Oklahoma City. According to the 18Z RUC run, instability will get to its peak at 0Z in WC Oklahoma southward towards the Red River. Most say that the low level jet needs to kick in so that storms can develop by I am not seeing it on the RUC model. I don't have much forecast ability, but I am continuing to learn... But good luck to all those out today, hopefully we can get something fired and produce before the sun goes down.
Tomorrow is though, a different story in terms of when storms will be able to initiate. Storms appear likely to be on-going during the morning/afternoon hours leaving a probable concern on any recovery that is possible so that stronger storms can develop during the day. Looks like a target area of SE Kansas/NE Oklahoma into SW Missouri is in store. At the 12Z NAM run, looks like the 250m-6km shear vectors will be roughly parallel to the frontal boundary from east central Kansas northward, an almost evident squall line formation. But., further south into SE Kansas, NE Oklahoma and SW Missouri, the vectors become more perpendicular (though not totally perpendicular) to the boundary equating to a possible shot of discrete supercell development. Either way, I am going to look at further model runs as time progresses. Anybody chasing tomorrow better have some rocket boosters as these storms will be moving at a clip. More on tomorrow later.
# posted by VORTEXpursuit.com Storm Chasing @ 3/30/2008 02:20:00 PM
