Well, today didn’t amount to much in the way of tornadoes and after a hectic night at work of NHL games, a brief glance at the reports doesn’t show anything too substantial.  Kind of disappointing because I thought this was going to set up for a pretty nice episode of severe weather.  Timing is everything and we didn’t get the right ingredients to mix at the right time thus only yielding a squall line, hail and wind.

10/05 is starting to look like a possible chase day.  Plus, it’s on a Monday so I could make a run on it as I have the day off.  I admit to looking at Mondays models for literally 2 minutes so I haven’t really done any forecasting on it yet, BUT western Kansas looks like a very preliminary target to me.  We’ll see as the weekend gets closer and I get a chance to sit down and have a serious look at the models.  I’m super desperate to get out at least one more time before winter is here for good!  Wish cast ahoy!

***10/03 UDATE*** Things for Monday are starting to look like a no-go for me.  Models are starting to get more consistent and unfortunately, they stall this system out too far south for me to make a 1 day trip.  Plus the areas with the best shear have almost no CAPE to work with.  Like Thursday, the right ingredients aren’t lining up, so we will see if anything changes over the next day or so, but currently its looking like a wash for me.

Scott

Thursday October 1st has the potential to be a decent chase day in the central plains.  A nice cold front will move through CO on Thursday which will ignite some severe weather out in front of it.  There are a lot of positives working for this episode including strong wind shear, plenty of moisture return, and CAPE near 3000 j/kg.  If I were heading out I would be targeting the I-35 corridor between Wichita and Oklahoma City where the dry line should be.  The moisture returns from the Gulf look damn impressive I will say.  Possibilities also exist north in eastern Nebraska/western Iowa however, the most unstable air will live down on the southern target.  Unfortunately, I have used up all of my time off from work which doesn’t recharge until the day after October 1st!  Damn!  So I will be keeping an eye on this from home/work on Thursday.  Tony Laubach will be chasing this event possibly with a few others from the Colorado crew, so check his page on Thursday for updates as I know I will!

And speaking of Tony’s page, it’s brand new and it’s impressive!  A few other chasers I know have done re-vamp’s of their blogs/websites and it’s motivated me to start putting something a little more comprehensive together for myself.  So, I’ve started looking around at some other Word Press type sites and will be moving this website some time during the off season.  I like the idea of having a few more options and widgets when I post blogs or chase re-caps than is possible on the current page.  So, that’s mostly going to be the big project during the off season.  Also on the docket for the off season are a few minor upgrades in equipment.  I’m still looking to shoot in all HD next year which will be great if I’m ever going to try to put a DVD together.  Also, the Pathfinder is in need of some better tires for those muddy roads.  Lastly, I’m looking to invest in a new dash mount for my streaming camera.  Something that easily pans would be a seriously nice addition!  So that’s about it from my end of chasing these days.  If anything else looks promising during the Fall and I have some time off to play with, I will be on it.

Scott

Looks like a long drive to Oklahoma on Monday is not in the cards for me personally.  In order for me to dedicate a multiple day chase, there would have to be a significant tornado threat.  Looks like wind/hail will be the primary threat down there.  Yup, MCS city.  So I’ll leave that to our Oklahoma friends where no doubt, there’ll be an outbreak since I’m not going.  Hahaha…

Locally, there might be something to be had up in Wyoming on Sunday.  I’m keeping my eye on the models and may decide to head out since I haven’t chased in a long minute.  Also, a few of us are going to watch the Man United/Man City match at the British Bulldog Sunday morning at 7am, so man up and come drink some beer!  Anyway, we’ll see what happens Sunday afternoon…

Scott

Well, probably not.  BUT hurricane Jimena is on target to hit the Baja Coast early Thursday morning and then move almost directly north to guess where?  San Diego!   Exactly the place where I’ll be enjoying 5 days of vacation starting on?  You guessed it; Thursday morning.  Hopefully Jimena will make landfall and move back out to sea rather than straight up the coast north.  My hurricane knowledge is nil, so take that for what it’s worth.  The forecast in San Diego currently is still a bit unsure about what the weekend has in store.  One update shows partly cloudy with slight chances of rain, while others show a weekend full of Jimena left-overs.  It’s my cousins wedding so I hope we get some good weather but I’ll definitely have my camera with me to shoot some potential post hurricane goodness!  Either way, bring it on.

Potential areas affected by this weekend...

Scott

Headed out today around 1:30 after sorting out an electrical issue at my house and made it to Bennett and sat for awhile praying for the cap to break.  That didn’t happen.  Tony Laubach and Dann Cianca were out chasing together today and met me in Bennett and we all decided to team up and head back north where one cell had moved down from Nebraska.  The further south and closer it got to us, the more it fell apart.  A quick glimpse at the parameters didn’t give us all much hope.  Thus ended the chase with nothing but blue skies.  The humanity.  Not all a loss though, I finally got to meet in person Tony and Dann both of whom have blogs I follow along pretty regularly.  Plus I got to use my ham radio to finally talk to someone, not just scan the NOAA channels.  Funny how being threatened to be beaten with a tripod will get you in gear.  Bring it on son!  Hahaha…

Anyway, I think tomorrow will be a lazy chase type of day where I might just kick around the house and keep an eye on radar and if something looks interesting, I’ll head out.  Monday is gradually starting to peak my interest more and more though, so we’ll see.

Scott

It’s not the ideal setup, but I have the day off, I haven’t been out in almost two weeks, and I think there’s a good chance at some severe storms.  First, the good news; diurnal heating throughout the day should give us around 1000-1500 J/kg of CAPE, so the atmosphere should destabilize in the early afternoon.  Second, the mid-level shear should be decent at around 25 kts and even more in the upper levels.  Lastly, surface dew’s should be in the 50’s.  Now the bad part.  Storm initiation in the afternoon will be quick so being in the right spot at the right time will be critical.  As storms move south and east they will become less intense, again reiterating the point that we need to get on them quickly and be there for initiation or shortly thereafter.

So, that’s what we should be up against.  Target-wise, I think setting up somewhere along I-70 near Byers or Bennett will give us good options to either play storms that fire on the Palmer, or storms that go up in the north along I-76.  Hopefully storms will fire around 4pm and we can get to them quickly.  Fingers crossed…

Scott

We will be heading out tomorrow targeting the I-70 corridor, particularly Goodland, KS.  It really hurt not being able to go out today but we will try to make the most out of tomorrow’s half way decent setup.  Looks like we will have some decent shear, almost 40kts at 500MB and hopefully daytime heating will give us some good instability to play with.  NAM has a nice pocket of almost 2000 CAPE near the NE/KS/CO intersection.  I don’t really think tornadoes are a good possibility tomorrow but who knows?  Anyway, we will take off tomorrow around noon, head out I-70 and adjust as we go.  Storms should hopefully start evolving in the late afternoon/early evening.  Hope to see some folks out there!  As always, if something is worth streaming, we will so check it later in the afternoon.  

Scott

A real quick forecast for tomorrow…We will be heading out around noon-ish to NE Colorado again.  The upper ridge that has been killing the wind shear lately looks to have finally been broken down.  Thus, wind shear will be strong tomorrow and with around 1500 j/kg of CAPE supercells will be likely around 4-5pm.  We are targeting somewhere between Imperial, Grant, and Ogalalla, NE around 5pm.  As always, we will have our live stream up.  Still working on what the problem is with the GPS integration on the stream.  

Scott

A great setup is shaping up for tomorrow out in eastern Colorado so John and I are hitting the road for sure.  Plus, we won’t have to go very far.  Gotta love these local backyard chases!  Not much to say except that a lot of great ingredients are going to be in play tomorrow afternoon.  We got SFC dew points in the mid 50’s, plenty of moisture, and good shear (which is what we’ve been waiting for!) which should make supercells in eastern Colorado a certainty.  SPC has a nice 5% tornado area hatched not too far from Denver.  We are targeting a triangle area of cities including Fort Morgan, Sterling and Yuma.  

So that’s the plan.  We will be streaming live and I will update the blog in real time as much as possible.  I have a pretty good feeling about tomorrow so stay tuned.  It could be one of those days we remember for awhile!

Scott

John and I are heading out tomorrow at 8AM and targeting Kearney, NE.  SPC shows more of a probable TOR area further east than that, but I want to hang a little more west where storm initiation starts and cells hopefully remain discrete before turning in to a linear mess.  I will try to update here in real time and if we start getting something worth streaming, we will.  Link for the live stream is in the “about me” section on the top right of the page.  Wish us luck tomorrow, we’re going to need it!

Scott