. . .The 533 Low. . .
Boy is this looking interesting. For the past several days, a majority of the major global spectral model solutions were suggesting the possibility of significant mid-latitude cyclone development over the plains the weekend of Feb 24-25. Even at the National Storm Chaser Convention this past weekend there was a "buzz" about this upcoming storm… and even research meteorologists and weather enthusiast extraordinaire Howie Bluestein was showing the Day 7 GFS progs before his radar talk.
What I am seeing here in the models is a storm that may very well rival November 27, 2005 in regards to development, size, and impact over the Great Plains. The GFS shows a ~533dam 500mb low center near the OK/KS border Saturday 2/24. Surface development will also be very impressive with a large warm sector ahead of the low. A surface low will likely track from Southwest KS into Northeast KS…deepening significantly… perhaps to lower-mid 980s millibar MSLP center. The surface low may actually develop fairly close to the 500mb low center which may enhance the possibility of low topped supercells much like 11/27/2005. The other thing that is interesting is the fact that I"m off work Saturday, so if the system slows down enough such that central or southern KS looks like a reasonable possibility of low topped supercells, then it’ll be my first chase of 2007! I’ll try to keep my blog up to date with regards to the latest thoughts I have of this storm through the week…including the blizzard aspect of the storm…as it appears very likely there will be a major… perhaps crippling blizzard over some portion of the Great Plains northwest of the low track.
One thing to note here that is important. This is still in the 120-144hr time frame… and all the models are now in a really good agreement with each other today. While this "super ensemble" method of agreement implies increased confidence, it doesn’t mean these models all have a handle on the evolution of this downstream development. Tomorrow, the models may show something quite different… but there will still be a big storm… it’s just the synoptic and subsynoptic details that will not be clear until a day or two out. One of the things I want to do here on this blog is document the various shifts in model solutions, similar to some of my previous winter blog posts.
500mb Heights & Vorticity showing the low center over KS/OK