It so far appears that I will be chasing a severe weather setup that is poised to impact the western portions of Kansas into southwestern Nebraska this coming Thursday and Friday.
On Thursday, a surface low pressure system will deepen during the day as the 18Z NAM model run from today shows a reading of 982mb centered somewhere in SE Colorado or SW Kansas. Each model run has been moving this system a little more to the south and east which is good for me as that means a shorter drive than what was forecasted previously. A concern about the setup on Thursday is the high LCL levels which could lead to a much lower chance for surface based storms. I feel that the best chances for storms will be near the warm front/dryline intersect where LCL levels will be at the lowest; target as of right now will be along the Kansas/Nebraska border somewhere in the rectangle of Oberlin, Kansas and McCook, Nebraska to Smith Center, Kansas and Franklin, Nebraska. Any storms that fire along the dryline will most likely be elevated as LCL levels exceed 1000m. I will keep tune to the models and adjust targets accordingly.
Friday appears to be a better day for obtaining tornadic supercells than on Thursday. LCL levels appear to be lower than on Thursday, but there is quite the difference between the 12Z and the 18Z model runs that has me scratching my head. I'll divulge more about Friday on future blog entries.
So far, it looks like a go for storm chasing on Thursday and Friday as I intend to leave Gardner by 8AM on Thursday, hoping to head back into town early Saturday morning. Unless Saturday looks more interesting than what it does now, that is the plan.
In other news, these blog entries are being cross posted onto my blog on the MyFOXKC Community Blog section. The official blog is on the VORTEXpursuit.com Storm Chasing website at
www.vortexpursuit.com/blog.html .
There is a video on LiveLeak that has caught my eye as my kids think it is funny! Check it out as a girl screams for her mom as she was caught shoplifting and being held outside of a store:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cbc_1210935918
# posted by VORTEXpursuit.com Storm Chasing @ 5/20/2008 03:15:00 PM
