GoBoB Chasing

After an upper respiratory infection and a DNS problem GoBoB and GoBoB.com are both back among the living. These unseasonably warm temperatures may well portend the end of chase season. If I had to pick two seasons to miss these are probably the best two. VORTEX2 and their embedded armada of The Weather Channel, Discovery, and the TIV have pretty much destroyed what used to be a fun hobby.

I’m not really a fan of Dr. Charles Doswell. He is pompous, articulate to the point of wordy, and in this case correct. Please see: http://www.flame.org/~cdoswell/chaser_convergence.html

My good friend Steve Miller’s video (not work friendly unless you mute the audio first): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMdJy3qMak

I don’t know whose video this is but his/her in car camera setup is awesome and another nail in the coffin.

Much fewer chances of tornadoes, but severe weather still expected.

SPC has upgraded to a High Risk for much of Oklahoma today. Please monitor the weather this afternoon/evening.

Hopefully there weren’t any season finales you were planning to watch this evening.

Chased 486 Miles Wednesday with Robert and Karen Hall and didn’t see squat. At 4:50AM on Thursday the 13th a Tornadic storm misses their house by a couple of miles. Most of Tulsa sleeps through the event or does not hear warning sirens.

I bought another NOAA All Hazards Radio tonight so I can have one that only warns on Tulsa and Creek counties and one that warns on all of Eastern, OK that I can unplug. Unplug is what I did at 4:00AM (STUPID) and I slept through the whole thing. Thankfully no one was badly hurt, but these overnight events are typically the ones that have high death tolls as no one seeks shelter because they are asleep. Please heed this warning and get a NOAA All Hazards Radio with SAME encoding and program it for your county and maybe one to the south and west as an early tripwire.

It is amazing to think of how many strong systems have swept over Oklahoma in the past year and had no moisture to work with. We call these a total waste of thermodynamics. Today we are sitting here with all of the moisture in the world and no forcing mechanism nor low level shear. The cold front will makes its way across the region and dump tons of rain over the next several days but I don’t see anything that is chaseable.

Tuesday was not a chase day as the warm dry air at 700 millibars (roughly 8000-9000 feet) held strong and suppressed most convection. The 12z (7:00AM CDT) sounding out of Norman showed 11-12 degree Celsius 700 mb temps and that is awfully difficult (not impossible) to break. I did not head to Woodward, OK because I did not think it would break until after dark. Thankfully I don’t have those 400+ miles of driving on the vehicle or my body. Chasing poor targets will wear you out as I have learned over the years.

Much more of a surprise is that the low level jet has not kicked in as of midnight. With nearly 70 degree dew points across Oklahoma and no ongoing convection to release some steam, this potentially sets Wednesday up to be a huge day.

Lastly: sorry about the lack of streaming. The cellular network on Monday was poor and completely saturated. I could get a stream up, but would lose all other data. There are simply too many chasers using all the bandwidth. Hopefully this will improve, but the Find Bob should always work as it uses ham radio and is not as reliant on the Internet or cellular networks.

Monday was an interesting chase day. Steve Miller and I spoke about 9:15 and both remarked how it did not “feel” like an outbreak day based on the cool dreary weather we both had. We however both had faith in the models and our forecasts that it would be a big day. As the clouds burned off in western Oklahoma and the Gulf moisture surged with the strong southern winds the day continued to look more dire as it became apparent we were in as loaded gun as you can get and storms were going to affect populated places.

My target was a Guthrie, OK to Perry, OK corridor with chase partners Robert and Karen Hall along for the first chase of the season. We had a nice lowering at the intersection of 35 and 412. A tornado was reported, but I went back through the video and did not see one. The inflow winds were incredible between 75 and 85 mph. We could barely stand without being literally blown off our feet. Eventually our cell ran away and we tried several secondary targets, but everything was moving too fast. 245 miles of chasing and the standard banquet of pizza rolls and a strong Martini both courtesy of Karen Hall (thanks mom) finished a great day.

My good friend and former chase partner Steve Miller who now lives in Moore, OK had a significant impact at his residence. Fortunately Andrea was safe in the below ground shelter and the damage isn’t too bad. There is no worse feeling in this world than when you realize a storm is going to affect loved ones and you aren’t there. Please dust off you home safety plan and make sure everyone know where to go and hopefully has a safe place to go. I’ll harp one more time and say GET a NOAA ALL HAZARDS RADIO!!! Lastly, my thoughts go out to everyone who lost possessions and loved ones today. While we chasers do hope for tornadoes, we never want to see them in populated places.

Monday is definitely a chase day. The forecasted hodograph soundings are called “loaded gun” for a reason!
The computer models continue to strengthen the capping inversion which has two effects. First it limits convection and maybe shuts it off all together just like a lid on a pressure cooker. More likely in my opinion is that it means that the couple of storms that can break the cap are huge and have complete control of their environment. This results in big, long lasting, and unfortunately devastating tornadoes. Wichita, KS is currently under the gun, but hopefully the target will move to a less populous place.

I always hate it when the model I despise the most (GFS) has what I consider to be the best solution given recent trends. Monday is looking very interesting. With possible CAPE of 3000 J/kg, two solid days of moisture advection to deliver 65°+ dew points, strong and deep wind shear.

Guessing this far out (and it is a guess); I am going to play farther north along the dryline than I normally would. It has been a while since I simply targeted the triple point in the warm front.

Tuesday and Wednesday also hold great conditional possibilities that won’t unveil themselves till Monday evening. In any case keep an eye on chasertv.com for the latest in live breaking weather.

2010 has been a very quiet severe weather season to date. The Storm Prediction Center has yet to issue a moderate or high risk. The previous record was March 21st 2005 as being the latest in the season.

This will probably change tomorrow as 04-22-10 looks to support issuance of a Moderate Risk. I haven’t chased since 04-25-09 and I really look forward to returning to the field.

I need to pick up some new wiper blades and see if I remember how to outfit the Jeep for Chase mode.