CheeselandSkies

FWIW (which hasn't been a whole lot of late*), SPC saw fit to introduce a risk area for Days 6 and 7 (Tuesday-Wednesday). The former extends into Iowa. *Wording for Day 7 event hints at a more ominous look for the Plains, which coming from someone other than Broyles carries a little more weight in my mind.

Well lookie there, spring at last!

I would love to be proven wrong, but it's hard to be optimistic looking at the models now and having to clear my car off before I can go to work for the second time this week on April 19th.

*Sigh.* Already steeling myself for another wasted spring. What does it take to get an active severe pattern this decade (after the extremes of April 2011, of course)? La Nina, El Nino, anomalous warmth, anomalous cold, nothing works. Need to see a year where events like June 16th-18th, 2014, April 9th, 2015 and May 24th-25th, 2016 are part of a sustained pattern and not just diamonds in the rough...and this isn't going to be it.

Can I rage quit the atmosphere?

I recall 2012 being the worst severe season of the lot. The "season" was essentially March 2nd and April 14th. I remember being totally stoked for all that March and early April heat this far north to lead to some epic severe weather outbreaks (think mid-March 1990) when those powerhouse early season systems plowed into an airmass that they didn't have to modify from Arctic conditions at the 11th hour, but aside from those two days (one well southeast and one well west of here), such systems never came. It hardly even stormed around here, and then we baked. Wisconsin recorded a measly four tornadoes for the entire year, and Illinois was well below average as well. I'm still convinced April 2011 broke something in the atmosphere's ability to produce a proper tornado season. Even the ensuing May was weird, dead for the first three weeks followed by three more days of extreme violence, then quiet again. 2013 had the back half of May and the fall outbreak in IL/IN and that's about it. 2014, until now as bad as I thought it could get in terms of a winter hangover, had April 27-28 and June 16-18, not much of note apart from that. The few setups in May were tempered by lingering cold air. 2015 had a certain event three years ago to the day that I still can't think about too carefully without wanting to put a gun to my head. Early-mid May were fairly active, but what looked like it would be the biggest day (May 16th) couldn't hit its ceiling due to lingering junk convection and cool outflow over all but a small portion of what would have been a Plains-wide risk area. There was one regional opportunity in late June which I chased and was looking right at where a tornado was, but it was rain-wrapped UNlike that certain April event. Then it had the anomalous December outbreaks related to the Super Nino. 2016 had the active February in Dixie and the East. Mid-March had one opportunity in the upper Midwest region, when I got my only glimpse of an actual tornado, but it was just that, a glimpse in the lightning flashes of a large cone funnel hanging down to the tree line after dark. May produced three potential career highlight chase days on the 9th and 24-25 but with little activity otherwise. My vacation started on the 30th. Ouch, and June turned out to be one of the quietest on record until the 22nd, the same day as the previous year when another opportunity presented itself in the same area of north-central Illinois. I got on a tornadic supercell but once again any tornadoes were buried in murk. Last year was pure garbage in terms of quality chase days, except for that one in FREAKIN' FEBRUARY! I couldn't chase because of a prior commitment, which I made because it was FREAKIN' FEBRUARY and the northern target didn't really look like anything until the day of.

How the heck does the 12Z GFS wipe the Gulf bone dry next Monday (week from tomorrow) and then have upper 60s to the Red River by Wednesday evening?

TORR with the storm southeast of Shreveport based on a CC drop co-located with the couplet at about 2352Z, although the couplet actually looked stronger for a few frames before that. Circulation looks to be getting rained into by the cluster enveloping it from the west now.

It would be helpful for non-mets if posts like this with multiple teleconnection acronyms could include a quick summation of what that means for sensible weather in this sub and the rest of the CONUS. This one does (increased severe potential), but I find that's not always the case. I know what MJO stands for, but haven't the foggiest about what it means for it to be into the IO or what the AAM crashing almost -3 sigma means.

I despise eastern trough dominated springs, which seem to be the rule rather than the exception. Although, I remember April 2011 as being raw, gray and convectively uneventful as we were stuck on the cool side of most of the systems after the April 10th one (which, maddeningly, produced most of its tornadoes NORTH of southern Wisconsin). Even had snow showers on the 18th. I just realized something, going back and rereading the April 9th, 2011 Day 2 outlooksvalid for April 10th. It always seemed to me like that event underperformed its potential based on the wording of those Day 2 outlooks, even though by Wisconsin standards it was fairly significant (16 tornadoes, 1 EF3 and 3 EF2), the wording -particularly in the initial one- made it sound like it would be April 27 for the upper Midwest (2 1/2 weeks before anyone knew what "April 27" meant). Now I know why that is...IT WAS BROYLES!!!

LOL, I like the "storm" and "developing gale" notations across the central CONUS.

Well in any case the Plains especially along and west of I-35 need all the rain they can get between now and May.

Yuck. Shades of 2014, except with less snow and thus a looming drought in the mix. Fun. Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Ugh. WHEN is it going to wane?

12Z GFS solution still maintains a fairly robust severe threat for next Sunday along the I-35 corridor in OK/southern KS. Although, it is rather disconcerting to see the surface low and its associated warm sector basically get crushed between one cold air mass to its east and another to its northwest, instead of continuing to deepen as it lifts towards the upper Midwest on Monday.

Recent GFS runs would support some degree of severe threat in the southern/central Plains next Sunday, the 25th. Warm sector SRH and EHI took a big jump from the 00z to the 06z run, popping some impressive analogs. Remains to be seen if it has legs, but it's the next thing to watch.

I'd say a tad earlier in the season than ideal for such an active pattern. Much like last year, might run into a problem with not enough moisture recovery between systems, although as it stands right now (one system next Sunday-Monday and then another the following Friday-Saturday) it shouldn't be as much of an issue. I know I've said it before, but it sure would be nice to get a look like that from late April through May one of these years. One thing that the last few years have taught me is that with any given early season setup, actual dewpoint value doesn't matter as much as long as LCL is not too high (not too much of a difference between dewpoint and temperature) and the upper levels are sufficiently cold. The setups in late March-early April '17 that underwhelmed had other issues besides moisture. You get ideal shear profiles and cold upper levels, and marginal-looking surfaced T/Td can get the job done (3/15/16, 2/28/17).

Way too early to take seriously, but 12Z GFS also has a nice little event in IA/MO for Saturday the 24th. That's the 2nd run in a row that suggests another potent system 5-7 days after the first.

At this point I don't want to see any forecasts of a "very cold North America," especially not from King Euro. Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

At least someone realizes it's spring. Everybody else still wants to wishcast snow and cold. Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Can we please bottle the 300-hour 12Z GFS surface and H5 solution and have it verify in May, preferably when I'm on vacation? Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

That trough on the 126 hour GFS valid for Wednesday evening tho...would put tomorrow to shame if anything close to that verifies. Still a ways out, though.

Ballsy call by the SPC to introduce a risk area for Day 6. I thought they were being overly bearish holding off on a Day 5 risk area last Thursday valid for today given what the Euro was advertising, but they ended up being spot-on. Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

*New member, longtime lurker and refugee from the veritable ghost towns of TalkWeather and Stormtrack here. I held off on joining because I despise the Eastern snow weenies and their subforums which fragment the discussion for severe threats, but it seems the knowledgeable severe people only post on this site* Brutal. No way I thought this severe season could be delayed as bad as 2014, since that year featured the winter that wouldn't die. This year we had plenty of warm, pleasant (sometimes unseasonably so) weather here in the Midwest from February through April, but we rarely "paid" for it the way that I expected. The one day we did (February 28, significant tornadoes up to I-80 in IL), I had a prior commitment because it didn't even occur to me that chasing would be a possibility in this region in February. Copied and pasted from what I just posted on Stormtrack: Well, I went ahead and took Monday morning off to keep open the option of chasing in the northern or central Plains Sunday evening. Whether I actually go or not remains to be seen. It continues to look darn near gorgeous on the GFS if you just look at the CAPE and surface pattern, but at 500mb things get a lot more iffy. The trough hangs back well to the west and the 500mb southwesterlies are 25-35kt at best over the warm sector. The big question is, do the favorable factors (namely CAPE and low-level directional shear) compensate resulting in slow-moving, easily chaseable supercells, or do you have insufficient mid-level shear and thus disorganized, marginally severe multicells? Capping also remains a concern although I think it should be breakable at least in some areas. I'd rather have that than too little cap and everything going up at once in a convective mess which we have seen all too often thus far this year. Low-level directional shear, SRH and hodograph critical angles look excellent along the warm front and near the triple point, which is another thing that has been lacking in many setups we've seen this year. Anyone remember what the 500mb winds and capping looked like on Bowdle day? As I recall, that was a pretty low-key risk setup (slight/5%) that paid off big time. I don't recall 500 mb winds being that strong on Dodge City or Chapman day last year, either. Monday is pretty much my only option since I'd be a huge jerk asking my coworkers to take extra days or work shorthanded again more than that so soon after what was supposed to be my chasecation, so any potentially better days later in the week are off the table for me until/unless something presents itself locally as the trough ejects toward the upper Midwest toward next Thursday/Friday/Saturday.