2011 Update

It has been a long, cold winter for those of us in the nation's heartland. We hit 50 degrees in St. Louis today for the first time since New Years Eve. Along with the warm temperatures has come the inevitable melting of our persistant snowcover. The prospect of snowless ground (pretty depressing for me in February) with this week's impending warmup has me thinking about severe weather and storm chasing.
Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to chase as much as I did last year. On January 22, my wife Jenn and I welcomed our first child, Jeffrey Jr. Along with being a first time parent, I have a different work schedule this year. I am back to the daily grind instead of working 3 days a week. I am also taking classes full-time this semester and can't chase on Tuesdays or Thursdays because of school.
Despite my ever increasing responsibilities, I plan on finding some time to chase. I get off from work at 3:30, so an after-work chase or two is possible as long as the target is within a couple hours drive. Weekend chases are another possibility. I highly doubt I'll be able to go on any multi-day chases this spring like Chris and I did last year.

Now that the depressing part of the entry is over its on to the good news. I expect that this will be an active spring for severe weather. Climatologically speaking, La Nina years are more favorable for severe weather outbreaks than are El Nino or Neutral years. We have had an active storm track all winter long, and storms cutting through the plains have had no problem drawing Gulf moisture north. One typical trait of La Nina winters is the presence of a ridge over the southeast. This ridge has been noticably absent for most of the winter. This ridge keeps the southeast warmer than normal and also allows moisture to work northward into the US around the west side of the surface high. This ridge should return to the southeast as we head toward the warmer months.
An interesting forecasting technique that I've been introduced to this year is the LRC, which stands for Lezak's Recurring Cycle. The basic premise of the technique is that a unique weather pattern sets up every fall. It is repeated throughout the winter and through the following year until a new cycle forms again in the fall. In this year's cycle, there have been three "signature storms," October 26, December 11-12, and February 1-2. Based on the LRC, we are due to see another signature storm around the fourth week of March and again around the second week of May. These two time periods could potentially be active for severe weather in and around the southern Plains and Midwest.
Anyone in and around St. Louis will certainly remember the tornado outbreak on New Year's Eve. I was working, but was able to take an impromptu chase down the road. With only my cell phone to guide me, I made my way to a position on the south side of Manchester Rd. in Ellisville, MO. I had a pretty unorganized funnel cloud pass over my head. It touched down in Ballwin about a mile and a half ENE of my location. It was only an EF1 tornado and did minimal damage, especially compared to the EF3 tornado that went from Fenton to Sunset Hills. According to the LRC, the system that led to these tornados should re-appear in about a week or so. This may be the first chance to chase for many people (assuming a storm forms). Unfortunately for my chase prospects, my family will be in town from NC next weekend, thus preventing me from chasing. However, if Chris doesn't have drill, and it looks like a decent setup, I'm sure I can talk him into chasing.
Chris and I have made a few upgrades to our equipment for this season. I will now have an entire chase season with my HD video camera, and Chris purchased a high quality digital camera. We also have a wi-fi hotspot for the car this year and a windshield camera mount. We will have a better internet connection and a good way to take video when we're speeding after a storm. If we are able to chase, we should have many opportunities to use the new equipment. The prospects for an active year are good.

7/19/10 Chase

Chris and I are back on the road again! It's been quite some time since we have been out together. Today's setup looks pretty decent relatively close to home. We left the St. Louis area around 11:15 with a target of Centerville, IA, just north of the MO border. There is actually a good amount of shear for late July. The magnitude of shear, both deep and low layer, coupled with expected CAPE values near 3000 j/kg makes for a favorable atmosphere for supercells. Tornados are a very distinct possibility.

6/8/10 Storm Chase Recap

Chris and I left the St. Louis area just before noon with a tentative target of the KC Metro area after a stop in Columbia. Shortly after we got on the road, we encountered a photogenic shelf cloud from the morning MCS. The photo was taken on Interstate 64 near the Olive/Clarkson exit. Thankfully, we missed most of the convection as we drove west on 64 and then 70.
We stopped in Columbia a little before 2pm and spent about 90 minutes in town. We had an awesome lunch at Flat Branch Brewery and Restaurant. Since moving from Columbia in 2008, I have been back through town only twice. Flat Branch is the kind of place that makes me miss living in Columbia. If you ever go there, try the Green Chile Chicken Fingers appetizer. They are the best chicken fingers I have ever tried and they go well with any of their microbrews. After lunch, we stopped to see our buddy and occasional chase partner Mike Baker. We were going to attempt to wait til 4pm to leave Columbia so he could chase with us, but the storms did not allow us to wait that long. A tornado watch had been issued for eastern KS and western MO and storms were starting to fire just west of Kansas City.
We made good time heading west on 70 and were just east of the KC metro area by 4:30. After a thorough look at radar trends, we decided to exit the interstate at Odessa and take state roads into Cass County, south of KC. Little did we know that this was our best decision of the day. Shortly thereafter, the highway we would have travelled in KC was enveloped in a flash flood from the slow moving storms.
We positioned ourselves perfectly to intercept the best looking cell on radar. It was the only supercellular structure evident, and by the time it crossed into Cass County it had begun to develop a hook echo. We were positioned 10 miles ESE of the storm when it was first tornado warned (the only tornado warning in the state all day!). We decided against travelling further west to intercept because of a lack of eastern road options. This decision caused us to miss the only brief tornado of the day, but we had no way of knowing that it would only produce a tornado in Harrisonville. We intercepted the storm just north of Garden City, MO. By the time the storm reached us, the tornado had lifted, but it still had a weakly organized, rotating wall cloud which produced a couple very brief funnels. The storm was moving slowly enough that we were able to track it east for a while. Shortly after our initial intercept, the storm became very outflow dominant on its southern flank. An outflow boundary, marked by a shelf cloud extended from the updraft base in an arc to the southwest. The storm continued to have a wall cloud and a very healthy updraft which rapidly sucked scud clouds up into the storm. After a short period of time, we gave up on the storm as the outflow cut off any good inflow into the storm.
Once we bailed off our storm, we decided to head back to St. Louis. Given the very marginal nature of the tornado threat, we considered this chase a success. We were on the only storm that produced a tornado, or was even tornado warned, in the entire state of Missouri all day. Only one other tornado was reported with the storms and it was in eastern KS, farther away than we were willing to go.
I have HD video of the wall cloud which I may post on youtube if I am feeling motivated. Chris has a few still pictures of the action. I may post a few stills of the wall cloud later if demand dictates.

6/8/10 Chase

After a long hiatus, Chris and I have decided to chase today. Even though the set-up is less than perfect, and something I definitely wouldn't drive to OK or TX for, it is good enough to warrant a chase. We are going to be chasing in Missouri for once. Our target area (north central MO) is only 3 hours from home. When there is potential action so close to home, why not chase?
The main thing I am worried about today is the MCS that is currently stretched across MO. How much destabilization will occur in it's wake? And what sort of boundaries is it going to leave behind? The current model runs are suggesting that the atmosphere should destabilize this afternoon to the tune of 2000 j/kg of CAPE. That moderate instability coupled with 35-40 knots of deep layer shear should be sufficient for supercells in a very weakly capped environment.
The lack of a cap has me worried as well. I am afraid that once storms begin to form, they will continue to form quickly and will rapidly develop into a line. Given the low-level shear that will be in place, the line could very well spawn a couple tornados. However, chasing tornados in a line is neither easy nor fun. If things do end up going linear pretty quickly, I hope to get some good shots of the shelf cloud as the complex propagates eastward.

Chase Update

For a while it looked like I was going to chase this weekend. However, as the models continuted to crank out data, the data became less and less favorable for a chase. If this event were closer to home, or earlier in the season, I might go. I don't doubt that there will be a tornado or two somewhere in the vicinity of central NE, but, there are just too many downsides to the chase. While the atmosphere will be strongly unstable, and very weakly capped, there may not be enough forcing for storms to form. It is a ten hour drive to the target area for a very uncertain convective situation. At this point, I would rather wait for a more favorable system to chase. There will be more tornados this year and at least a few more chases. One of them will not be this weekend however.

Chase Prospects

I am getting antsy to get out on the road and chase again. I have high hopes that I will be able to chase during the upcoming weekend. Models have been consistent in showing a large upper low moving into the plains. The details are almost impossible to resolve at this juncture, but based on pattern recognition I would say a chase is eminently possible in the Sat./Sun. timeframe. Some models, namely the 12Z GFS from this morning are suggesting that this system could come in a little further north than the previous few. Severe weather climatology does favor the severe threat moving a little further north this time of year. I kind of hope to be able to head to the KS/NE area this time around instead of the OK/TX area. So far this year, all roads have lead through Arkansas on the way home. Although parts of the state are beautiful, I'm getting sick of seeing it. Here's to hoping I will be chasing central NE next weekend.

5/12/10 Chase

I (Jeff) was unable to chase today due to the real world requirement of procuring actual income via the employer, employee relationship. However, Chris decided to head out to Kansas with our friend Mike Baker. I should have a write-up of their chase as well as a few pictures posted within a few days.

I am off tomorrow, and tomorrow is a potential chase day. I have other business to attend to though and most likely will not be able to chase. If something intriguing pops up here in the St. Louis area I may decide to give chase for a while. Low-level shear does not look all that impressive for tomorrow though so I'm not sure how good our tornado threat is going to be.