I am currently in Alliance, NE late this morning. The general area of
interest is very near where I am now… and I have a fairly broad
target at this point. An outflow boundary may be at play as well
later this afternoon from the morning thunderstorm complex northeast
of me across north central Nebraska. This may help push even higher
dewpoints farther back to the west later on in the day. The winds may
all go southeast everywhere, which would suggest heading west towards
Torrington for upslope/terrain forced storms. So, my broad target
basically extends from east of a line from Lost Springs to Cheyenne,
Wyoming…into much of the Nebraska Panhandle. I will narrow in on a
more focused target by early afternoon probably. The mid level
temperatures/baroclinic zone is very similar to that of yesterday, so
there is a persistence component to today’s chase forecast as well.
–
Mike Umscheid Photography
http://gallery.underthemeso.com
mesomike@gmail.com
This looks to be a classic Laramie range set-up to me. I really like the 3,000 CAPE showing up there on the SPC meso-analysis, as well as the east surface winds. Also, the upper disturbance heading in from the west. If I were out there today I’d target the area from Douglas to Lusk to Torrington to Wheatland to Douglas for the afternoon, and points east and southeast from there late this afternoon through the evening. The outflow boundary in western NE is impressive, but I’m not so sure it is going to provide the focus for initiation. Rather, it may provide some umph to any storm that form to the west and then latch onto it late this afternoon and especially this evening. Anyway, you can tell I’m bored as heck now that I am back in ATL for a while. LOL. Good luck with your chase today.
Comment by Mike Phelps — July 11, 2009 @ 2:17 pm
Looks like 2 targets. I expect initiation south of Douglas and northwest of Alliance. One question I have is whether that is a good mcs or bad in eastern NE. I dont like some of the dewpoints being advected to the west–Ogalallah and Sidney. Alliance is 66 dew which is good but will the quality of inflow from the east be good all evening or will it be too stable. My preference right now would be the western option. I would expect supercell to be in northern Goshen and southern Niobrara counties this evening.
Comment by jonathan finch — July 11, 2009 @ 2:19 pm
Hey Phelps and Finch. given right-moving supercell motion, I don’t want to go any farther north than Highway 26 to stage… but I may drift toward Torrington (I am in Scottsbluff as of 230pm CDT). This could be a good “Highway 26 corridor” event (Torrington-Scottsbluff)… We’ll see!
Comment by Mike U — July 11, 2009 @ 2:33 pm