It appears that the chase potential today has become rather dull... The models had progressively diminished chances for storms today over the past couple of days and with the MCS that pushed southeast across SErn ND, NErn SD, and Central and Southern Minnesota this morning, I think it pretty much zapped the better forcing and moisture much further south.
There's still some decent moisture convergence out there (DMC, for you Doswell groupies... hah!) and the instability is there for possibly some random showers and thunderstorms to bubble up to the east. I've been watching the radar scope and other than a few weak echoes, nothing has really taken off, other than up near Lake of the Woods, where there was a valid SVR earlier.
I'm holding out hope for this weekend. Saturday, another decent shortwave pushes across the region and that may bring another potential chase day. I'll continue to monitor that situation and will update the ol' blog here to let you all know the plan of attack.
More later...
Thursday is looking like a potential chase day around the area. Since I'm on a fairly short leash regarding money and mileage on my car with my up-coming vacation, this seems to shaping up quite well.
Granted this is a few days out yet, but the 00z NAM and GFS, as well as the 06z NAM are staying rather consistent. The 06zNAM is indicating plenty of shear (200+ helicities over much of Ern ND) and instability (EHI's of 2+ over SErn ND) for big storms. Flow is respectable with a nice 70-90 KT westerly jetlet at 500mb above southeasterly flow at the surface. The resultant hodographs are simply amazing with all kinds of curvature and storm-relative inflow...
It's something I'm certainly going to be keeping an eye on. If things remain consistent, I may just take the opportunity to finally make it out again. After an active two weeks at the beginning of the month, we've fell back into a lull the two weeks since. Yesterday's setup was very marginal and things pretty much happened the way I figured it would - not firing up until after dark, at least in and around the Nrn Valley area.
Let's hope Thursday pans out!
Stay tuned...
Hello everyone...
I apologize it's been a little while since I updated my status from Wednesday. The past couple of days have obviously been a little busy on the chase-front. No pun intended, of course...
I'll work on getting chase logs updated on here over the next couple of days. I still need to write up a more detailed summary from my chase on Monday (the 7th) and will have logs up from Thursday and Friday up, as well, this weekend.
In all, it's been an active week and now that I have a couple of days of down-time and no work, I should be able to get these things completed.
Stay tuned for the logs and photos!
We may be looking at another opportunity to chase tomorrow. Looking at the latest models, much of central and eastern North Dakota may just be looking at a decent threat for Supercells and tornadoes. Low-level and deep-layer shear and instability look outstanding and our mid and upper-level flow is more than enough to support Supercells.
I haven't seen hodographs like these in quite some time, so I feel I need to share these... This image is a forecast sounding near Grand Forks, ND at 3Z Friday (10:00pm Thursday evening). The hodograph in the upper-right hand corner is one of the largest I've seen in quite a while. That is some outstanding storm-relative inflow!
Capping won't be as much of an issue as with our chase days over the past week and if the trends continue on the NAM, convection may fire late in the afternoon and that would certainly help my cause. Since I'm on mids this week, I'll have Thursday open, but I'll have to be back into town by 11:30pm Thursday night for work.
It doesn't look like I'd need to drive far and that will help, as well.
This definitely looks like one of the better setups we've had around these parts in some time.
I'll continue to watch things over the next day or so and will try to update the blog here.
More later...
The storm coverage surprised me a bit today... and wasn't anticipating a chase really. When I saw the storm to the south of town earlier this afternoon, I took off after it. Unfortunately, the storm weakened a bit and dove southeast.
I decided to stay on it, hoping it would recycle some, ignoring TOR warned stuff to my north. That activity looked more linear and didn't look like it was in as good of an environment. Lo and behold, the southern storm back-built to the west and went SVR warned again. I got far enough south to position myself in front of it. It wasn't a whole lot to look it, but it was still pretty.
I retreated back north after letting this storm pass to my north and east, in attempt to catch up with the newly TOR'ed stuff to the north but they really crapped out.
So, I'm sitting here in Crookston to get a little data and to watch the archived radar stuff. Boy, that stuff to the north really petered out! I probably wouldn't have caught up with it anyway...
Anyhow, I'll have a more detailed log up later tonight. I'm continuing on home...
It's looking like my plans for my extended time off this weekend from work will be changing somewhat. I was initially thinking of taking a road trip out west to finally see the badlands here in North Dakota.
It's looking now, that while I'll still be heading west on Saturday, it will be to see Supercells! This afternoon's 12z NAM is indicating a fairly significant surface trough pushing eastward across the Northern Plains. Steepening lapse rates and good flow in the mid to upper-levels should give us plenty of instability and shear for Supercells. I'm a little concerned with the mid-level temperatures. With 700mb temps from 10 to 15° C, it will be fairly capped out there. The NAM is convecting things over western/central ND between 21 and 00z, which I think is being quite liberal. I wouldn't be surprised if things hold off closer to sunset. It does show some slight weakening in the inversion along and just behind the frontal boundary, so maybe ascent will be strong enough to provide that trigger to bust through it.
It's a couple of days out yet, but it will be something I'll keep close tabs on over the next 24-36 hours.
I'm definitely enjoying this pattern...
After a couple of days of forecasting and looking at models, I decided to head out chasing last evening.
A few co-workers and I met up at the office yesterday afternoon, looked at some last-minute data and after setting up the GPS, laptop, and topping off, we heading off for far Northwestern Minnesota.
A surface trough was progressing eastward across the state while a cold front was dropping southeast out of Canada setting up a decent shot at storms across the area. We didn't feel we needed to go far and initially targeted between Hallock and Roseau, MN. We didn't even end up that far north.
We shot east through town and jumped on MN-220 and progressed northward to MN-4 near Big Woods. Here, we jogged over to US-75 to head further north. We remained on US-75 through Donaldson, but pulled over on a county road a couple of miles north of town. We sat here for about an hour, watching towers attempting to develop to our north, but they consistently were being knocked over by mid and upper-level flow. Storms were developing to our north on the way up US-75, but the main cell had progressed well to our East and by the time we had stopped it had taken on a multi-cell look. Although, it did have some amazing structure to it. Updrafts kept back-building to the west, making for some dramatic scenes. We had a very nice perspective on it, but would have had to really bust east to catch up with it. It was increasingly moving into bad chasing terrain, as it was... Later, it had some especially nice structure with a very nice back-sheared anvil, updraft and overshooting top. Hopefully, the pictures will do it justice!
Anyhow, the towers along and behind the frontal boundary continued to get sheared apart and nothing ever really got going. We decided to reposition southward to remain ahead of the boundary and while doing so, noticed a minor cell trying to develop to our West. Mike and Jason decided to stop to take pictures of this, while Brad, Darren and I continued on south, then west, in attempt to get a better perspective. We stopped for a short photo op, then shot back down US-75 to Warren, then headed west on MN-1. We progressed westward only to watch our cell rain itself out and literally evaporate. Within a half-hour's time, the base on this thing was nearly gone. I hadn't seen anything like that in some time... It was pretty amazing.
We decided to continue west to I-29 to make our way back towards home. We stopped at the Manvel exit to get another look at additional updrafts trying to organize, but they, too, were getting sheared apart.
We quickly went into bag mode and returned back into Grand Forks at 7:44 PM. We met back up with Jason and Mike at Blue Moose for a drink and dinner, then parted our separate ways.
While the chase wasn't a complete bust, it certainly didn't pan out the way I was expecting. Models certainly didn't forecast the mid and upper-level flow last night very well. It had, at most 50-60 knot flow at 700 millibars and while there was decent speed shear in the upper 2-3 KM's, it shouldn't have sheared things apart the way it did out there in the field. It made it look as if we had a 80 knot jetlet over us, or something. Either way, the mid-level shear was just too great to allow updrafts to get organized further west, along the boundary. Storms to the east seemed to do better in possibly somewhat weaker flow and higher instabilities.
Another limiting factor for us last evening was my mobile data accessibility. For some reason or another I wasn't able to connect to the Internet via the Verizon Data Pack I signed up for and I was having issues with signal, to begin with. For the record, Northwestern Minnesota doesn't have great digital coverage through Verizon. I'll have to remember that! ;) The GPS worked quite well and for the first time, I strictly went off the Delorme Street Atlas and the GPS to navigate. It seemed to work very well and I'm continuing to think the GPS and SA upgrade was WELL worth the investment.
Now, I just need to figure out how to maintain my Internet connectivity. The GPS Real-Time Position Tracking through my web-site (yes, it is available now!) wasn't working either, because of the lack of an Internet connection, so that was another disappointment. Hopefully, in the near future, I'll have more chances to chase and test out the mobile setup.
I'll work on getting photos up tonight and tomorrow...
Stay tuned!
Total mileage: 130.4 miles
Time elapsed: 3 hours 38 minutes
Average moving speed:: 55.7 mph
Photo Gallery: http://photos.mhartman-wx.com/