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Storm chasing “down day”, landscape photography of the sand hills. I am currently en route to the sand hills of Nebraska, typing from a rest area along I-80 near Maxwell. I will be staying in Thedford tonight, and I should be arriving there by late afternoon after a lunch in North Platte. I plan to do some “golden hour” landscape photography of the sand hills along either US 83 or State Hwy 2. Both are beautiful drives through the sand hills. It will be interesting to see how much green-up there is in the hills. I may also go out late during the night like I did a couple nights ago and take advantage of near-full moonlight once again.
Looking ahead:
Tomorrow still appears to be a chase day in the Nebraska Panhandle. The latest NAM model still generates convective storms in near 1000 J/kg inflow airmass. Not sure of a specific target yet, I’ll figure that out later tonight or early tomorrow morning, but it will probably be a late show as the main upper level support will still be to the west… but low level frontogenesis will be strengthening across the Nebraska Panhandle by late afternoon and especially early evening. There should be organized strong to isolated severe in this good frontogenetic forcing area.
Thursday. On paper, this appears to be the best day of my chase vacation. I am liking the increased low level moisture depicted by the NAM east of the dryline in south central KS and western Oklahoma. Outstanding shear profile in the deep 0-6km layer as well as lowest kilometer. There could be a couple tornadoes with dryline initiated storms. Cold front forcing farther north doesn’t look so hot for tornadic supercells with mode quickly becoming a line from central KS north into central/eastern Nebraska. Given the neutral to cold advection in the 500-700mb layer by late afternoon early evening from the west… I foresee the dryline becoming active as far south as northwest Oklahoma. I could very well be targeting very near Dodge City on Thursday… or points just southeast of there. How about Protection, KS? It’s a great starting point on days like this with fantastic mid-upper winds from the southwest overspreading the warm, moist sector.
Friday… not sure where the effective boundary will be positioned Friday. I am thinking… and hoping… it slows down enough to keep North Texas in play around the Dallas-Ft Worth metroplex… we’ll see. This weekend looks confusing. The deep moisture is scoured out to the Gulf and the southeast states per all the models…but some residual moisture will linger about the plains amidst very chilly temperatures aloft. GFS does convect over the western Plains this weekend in some re-established weak low level convergent flow. Toward the end of my vacation, Monday 3rd and Tuesday 4th, the deep moisture may try to make a run back into my chasing domain (West or Southwest TX), but this is still pretty far out.