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...
