Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:48:34 -0500
Chase Trip Day One forecast (June 16): Two targets >> first is near the colorado/kansas/nebraska tri-border and second is south-central KS | Today could be a fairly wild day for severe weather on the central and
western plains. This is the first of a number of chase days for me as
I am on AL until the 28th. I am torn between two targets right now.
Target #1 is extreme southwest Nebraska/northeast Colorado/extreme
northwest KS border region -- say Benkleman, Nebraska to Wray,
Colorado. I will be waiting for fresh storms in the 6-8pm time frame
in this area... as there will likely be storms by 4pm coming off the
Laramie Range given the upper tropospheric jet streak dynamics in play
farther northwest (right entrance region of jet). All the high-res
mesoscale models want to convect up there early... and by 7-8pm, I
fear that the western Nebraska Panhandle may already evolve into a
non-supercell severe cluster... so playing farther southeast may be
best.. right at the northern reach of the heat plume where 60s
dewpoints pull back to the west-north west north of the sfc low.
Target #2. South-central Kansas. Very interesting setup here. The
well-forecast MCS is underway as of 1140 UTC over northern KS/southern
NE. The NAM12 all along, and now the high-resolution WRF models,
indicate a signal for development of a honking, nearly stationary
supercell at the dryline/OFB intersection somewhere from like
Hutchinson to Wichita. While the mid and upper tropospheric winds
will be 20-30 knots in this area, the directional shear will be very
good and you gotta love the sfc-850mb flow...yielding very interesting
hodographs with a Bunkers storm motion near the origin. This target
is very tempting (despite the 100-degree heat). There very well could
be a tall tornado from a supercell in this environment if the dewpoint
is > 65F in this area.
At this point, I am kind of leaning toward Target #2 actually... but
this is as of the time of this post before 1200 UTC.
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