T-minus three and a half days

So this year I've decided I'm gonna try to blog my chase. I say this every year and never come through, but I feel as though for my first solo chase I owe it to myself to do this. First, need to throw a BIG thanks out there to my partner Adam Penney. Without him and his incredible generosity and enthusiasm, none of this would be happening.

Anyway, on to the fun stuff...the forecast...

Bleak. Well, not totally, but the way its looking as of now, we won't be seeing any high risk days. Who knows though, we may get lucky. The devil is always in the details in the long term (and often short term), and most forecasts aren't slam dunks. This chasecation is definitely going to test my and Adam's ability to nitpick for details and make a solid forecast. This far out that is tough however, as models are rarely accurate more than a few days out. What you can look for is a general pattern in the wind fields, especially at the 500 mb level. Ideally, what you wanna see is a nice trough with strong Southwesterly flow at 500 mb, with the winds backing more South-southeasterly as you approach the surface. Well, we certainly have the SW flow for whats looking like the majority of the trip (assuming you believe the GFS and ECMWF models), only problem is, that flow is set pretty well west of where we need it to be to chase. Right now it looks like the best flow will be over the Rocky mountains...obviously not where we want it. Still three and a half days until the first chase day, so things can and more than likely will change (hopefully in our favor), as models tend to flip flop quite often. Two days ago it was looking like we were gonna be seeing potentially potent chase days almost every day throughout the trip. Now...well not so much.

So here's my chase day one forecast, albeit nine LEGIT model runs out (off hour runs not counted) as per the GFS...

Gotta say I'm pretty happy with central Nebraska on day one. By 0z a small branch of mid 30's to 40 kts of SW 500 mb flow will be sitting on top of 25-30 kts of SE 850 mb flow. In response to a 1000 mb surface low in NE Colorado, 20 kts of SE surface flow should be present. Moisture will not be an issue with 65-70ºF dewpoints at the surface and 15ºC dewpoints at 850 mb. There is also a what appears to be a Dryline bulge in the surface dews in Western Nebraska, leading me to believe there is something there that could enhance the shear locally. It's not a terribly tight DL, but it's something. All this will result in 2500+ J of CAPE which is MORE than enough to get a nice storm going. The GFS also breaks out a nice isolated area of precip right in the middle of where I think the best parameters will set up...more than likely a supercell in my opinion. I don't think capping will be an issue with roughly 7ºC at 700 mb. In fact, I think it will remained just capped enough to allow for one nice isolated storm to occur, which obviously works in our favor.

Two things I am seeing that I'm not particularly thrilled about. First is the potentially anemic 700 mb flow. At about 20 kts, I'm not sure if that will do. We shall see I suppose. The other may be more problematic. I am only seeing mid 70s surface temps near my target. Not sure that will be enough heating to get things moving. That in mind, the GFS may be over doing the CAPE.

One other totally problematic issue is that if the storm(s) move a bit further north and or northeast, they could end up in infamous cherry county, NE...home of ONE major road. No roads=no chasing. Learned that the hard way last year as we were forced to blow off what became a beautiful supercell due to no road options. Ugh.

ANYWAY

Will this be a big tornado day? As it stands now...No. Will things change? Yes. Right now I'm gonna remain optimistic and just hope for the best.