Not much is changing in my forecast except that I am going to adjust my target to the south and west to tiny Ralls, TX. The tornado thread looks to be minimal as moisture return is not going to be sufficient to allow for most, if not all storms to become surfaced based. Just because the storms will be elevated and not surface based, doesn't mean that there will not be severe weather. In fact there is a very good chance that we will see supercells capable of large destructive hail in the outlook area. Some of these stones may in fact be larger than 3" in diameter. Just to give you a perspective on what hail can do. Given the right density, hail the size of quarters can dent a vehicle's hood. Hail that is 3" in diameter can easily destroy a car's body and windows as well as damage the roof of a framed home with shingles.
The HRRR is showing that storms fire in the southern part of the risk area first, with development slowly building to the north. These initial cells will rapidly build and become severe with the chance for producing hail early on. The one thing I fear about cells that far south is that they may not have as good of quality shear as the cells to the north will and thus will not be able to produce as large of hail. They also may become too clustered and starve one another for the limited amount of moisture that will be present. The cells farther north will have much better speed shear and ample directional shear in place to allow storms to quickly begin rotating. In addition to this the HRRR is only showing two isolated cells in this area with plenty of space between them.
The points in my risk area to the north into the panhandle of Texas and in sw Oklahoma may not see any storms until after dark, if at all. Any storm that does fire runs the risk of producing sever hail but both the HRRR and the RUC are not showing any storms develop there. Furthermore the RUC is showing that there will not be any storms at all in the risk area but I do not agree with this at all.
Ralls, TX is the place to be to chase today.
***UPDATE 4:39pm 3/16/12***
SPC issued a mesoscale discussion for the risk area and two severe thunderstorm watchs.
(Clicking on the three images bellow will take you to their related pages on the SPC's website.
Storms are staring to fire just as the HRRR predicted in southwest Texas and are expected to increase in coverage to the north in time. So far the first storm to fire has become severe warned and is currently capable of producing quarter sized hail and winds up to 70mph. These storms are much further south than my initial target but that is fine as I expected storms to fire further south first. With moderate instability in place in the way of 1500 to 2500 J/kg it will only be a matter of time till storms start to fire closer to my target area of Ralls, TX, which is under a severe thunderstorm watch.
Inf act looking at the latest visible satellite, you will see an area of towering cu (the white puffs in the red circle) just to the southwest of my target. These are new storms firing and they are moving off to the northeast right for my target. Thus far my forecast is verifying. The yellow "X's" represent storms already in progress in the southern part of the risk area. You will notice they are pretty well clustered together like I forecasted they would be in my outlook above.
I nailed my forecast for this event. Today was pretty marginal for a chase day. Ralls, TX was my target for a day to chase elevated supercells producing hail. I was forecasting a near 0 threat for tornadoes. Bellow you will see a map of all the severe weather reports in the CONUS (continental United States (Lower 48 states)) from the SPC.
(Click the image above to go to the SPC's reports page.)
As you will see in Texas there were a few hail reports and one of them was for large hail. Bellow is the actual reports per the SPC. Sorry for the CAPS that is how they appear on the SPC's site. I just copy and pasted them over to here.
| Time | Diameter in inches | Location | County | State | Lat | Lon | Report (NWS WSO) |
| 2147 | 1.25 | 2 N NEW DEAL | LUBBOCK | TX | 3376 | 10184 | (LUB) |
| 2215 | 1.00 | 6 NE ABERNATHY | HALE | TX | 3390 | 10177 | QUARTER SIZE HAIL COVERING THE GROUND. (LUB) |
|2246 | 1.00 | 5 SE PETERSBURG | CROSBY | TX | 3382 | 10154 | QUARTER SIZE HAIL COVERING THE GROUND. (LUB) |
|2258 | 2.00 | 5 E PETERSBURG | FLOYD | TX | 3387 | 10151 | HEN EGG SIZE HAIL COVERING THE GROUND. (LUB) |
Now those can be difficult to read if you don't know how to read over them so bellow you will see those reports translated onto a map.
Notice how close Ralls, Texas is to the hail reports. My target was about 8miles from the hail reports and was under a severe thunderstorm watch and warning.
Today was just a practice run for my forecasting abilities. Sunday and Monday will be the real deal as I will actually be out live in the field on that day. If I get any more interest in this thread I will post live updates as I am chasing in here with photos and videos as well as a few forecast before the event kicks off.
If any of you have any meteorological questions or would just like to talk about the weather in general please feel free to in here.
You happen to chase any of the DFW storms yesterday? Lots of action for a 5% tornado day!
SPC had actually upgraded it to a 10% for the DFW metro before the tornadoes occurred. Having busted the previous day near Altus, OK I was discouraged and decided to sit out the DFW day for four reasons which I will line out bellow.
-The models showed the 500mb low stalling and staying to far to the west for there to be sufficient upper level winds to support supercells.
-The target would have been the DFW metro which is an absolute cluster fuck to chase with with the number of cars in it and the way the road network is set up.
-The timing of storms was very early in the day and the window for discrete cells before the front and the QLCS (quasilinear convective system [Squall line]) that it was pushing would pass through and kill the chance of discrete storms.
-Local news helicopters killing off footage sales.
These storms formed in a 1-3 hour window and although a few chasers got good footage, many did not as they could not get into position due to traffic. The hand full of chasers who were able to get lucky with their position got great footage but had very little luck marketing it due to the video captured by the helicopters of the tornado that passed over the Snyder Trucking lot. In hindsight I likely should have chased but it would have been to add stock footage to my portfolio and gather b-roll as apposed to actually attempt footage sales.
Looking into the future, other than today's marginal cold core setup in southeast Kansas there isn't much coming up in the next couple of weeks sop I will get a bit of a break. I was out chasing the last several weeks and did nab 3-5 tornadoes on March 18th near Willow and Mangum, Oklahoma.
You happen to chase any of the DFW storms yesterday? Lots of action for a 5% tornado day!
SPC had actually upgraded it to a 10% for the DFW metro before the tornadoes occurred. Having busted the previous day near Altus, OK I was discouraged and decided to sit out the DFW day for three reasons.
-The models showed the 500mb low stalling and staying to far to the west for there to be sufficient upper level winds to support supercells.
Ah. Too bad. I'm kind of surprised anyone was on it - seemed to catch a lot of people by surprise, but I guess some chasers probably live in the area and could scramble on short notice.
0
ChimeraMonster girl with a snek tail and five eyesBad puns, that's how eye roll. Registered Userregular
You happen to chase any of the DFW storms yesterday? Lots of action for a 5% tornado day!
SPC had actually upgraded it to a 10% for the DFW metro before the tornadoes occurred. Having busted the previous day near Altus, OK I was discouraged and decided to sit out the DFW day for three reasons.
-The models showed the 500mb low stalling and staying to far to the west for there to be sufficient upper level winds to support supercells.
Ah. Too bad. I'm kind of surprised anyone was on it - seemed to catch a lot of people by surprise, but I guess some chasers probably live in the area and could scramble on short notice.
Sorry, the forum cut off part of my post. I have fixed it though. Brandon Sullivan was one of the few chasers not from the local area that made the trip, but he chases pretty much every event. You can find his video on YouTube if you look for BNVN1.
0
ChimeraMonster girl with a snek tail and five eyesBad puns, that's how eye roll. Registered Userregular
Well, it's that time of year again, time to light the @Chimera signal and talk about severe weather!
Anyone in the Oklahoma City-Tulsa-Joplin area needs to start preparing for some bad storms later this week:
A Moderate Risk on Day 3 is usually bad news.
a5ehren on
0
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
We have been getting some pretty intense thunder-storms in my area the last couple days.
Posts
Outlook area: Southwest Oklahoma, Texas Panhandle, Northwest and Southwest Texas.
(UPDATED) Chase target: Ralls, Texas.
Timing: Early afternoon through the overnight hours. Storms likely to fire around 1-3pm local time.
Threats: (Primary threat) Large destructive hail, (secondary threat) damaging wind gusts, (minor threat) isolated tornadoes
Not much is changing in my forecast except that I am going to adjust my target to the south and west to tiny Ralls, TX. The tornado thread looks to be minimal as moisture return is not going to be sufficient to allow for most, if not all storms to become surfaced based. Just because the storms will be elevated and not surface based, doesn't mean that there will not be severe weather. In fact there is a very good chance that we will see supercells capable of large destructive hail in the outlook area. Some of these stones may in fact be larger than 3" in diameter. Just to give you a perspective on what hail can do. Given the right density, hail the size of quarters can dent a vehicle's hood. Hail that is 3" in diameter can easily destroy a car's body and windows as well as damage the roof of a framed home with shingles.
The HRRR is showing that storms fire in the southern part of the risk area first, with development slowly building to the north. These initial cells will rapidly build and become severe with the chance for producing hail early on. The one thing I fear about cells that far south is that they may not have as good of quality shear as the cells to the north will and thus will not be able to produce as large of hail. They also may become too clustered and starve one another for the limited amount of moisture that will be present. The cells farther north will have much better speed shear and ample directional shear in place to allow storms to quickly begin rotating. In addition to this the HRRR is only showing two isolated cells in this area with plenty of space between them.
The points in my risk area to the north into the panhandle of Texas and in sw Oklahoma may not see any storms until after dark, if at all. Any storm that does fire runs the risk of producing sever hail but both the HRRR and the RUC are not showing any storms develop there. Furthermore the RUC is showing that there will not be any storms at all in the risk area but I do not agree with this at all.
Ralls, TX is the place to be to chase today.
***UPDATE 4:39pm 3/16/12***
SPC issued a mesoscale discussion for the risk area and two severe thunderstorm watchs.
(Clicking on the three images bellow will take you to their related pages on the SPC's website.
Storms are staring to fire just as the HRRR predicted in southwest Texas and are expected to increase in coverage to the north in time. So far the first storm to fire has become severe warned and is currently capable of producing quarter sized hail and winds up to 70mph. These storms are much further south than my initial target but that is fine as I expected storms to fire further south first. With moderate instability in place in the way of 1500 to 2500 J/kg it will only be a matter of time till storms start to fire closer to my target area of Ralls, TX, which is under a severe thunderstorm watch.
Inf act looking at the latest visible satellite, you will see an area of towering cu (the white puffs in the red circle) just to the southwest of my target. These are new storms firing and they are moving off to the northeast right for my target. Thus far my forecast is verifying. The yellow "X's" represent storms already in progress in the southern part of the risk area. You will notice they are pretty well clustered together like I forecasted they would be in my outlook above.
HAIL, that's what!
I nailed my forecast for this event. Today was pretty marginal for a chase day. Ralls, TX was my target for a day to chase elevated supercells producing hail. I was forecasting a near 0 threat for tornadoes. Bellow you will see a map of all the severe weather reports in the CONUS (continental United States (Lower 48 states)) from the SPC.
(Click the image above to go to the SPC's reports page.)
As you will see in Texas there were a few hail reports and one of them was for large hail. Bellow is the actual reports per the SPC. Sorry for the CAPS that is how they appear on the SPC's site. I just copy and pasted them over to here.
Now those can be difficult to read if you don't know how to read over them so bellow you will see those reports translated onto a map.
Notice how close Ralls, Texas is to the hail reports. My target was about 8miles from the hail reports and was under a severe thunderstorm watch and warning.
Today was just a practice run for my forecasting abilities. Sunday and Monday will be the real deal as I will actually be out live in the field on that day. If I get any more interest in this thread I will post live updates as I am chasing in here with photos and videos as well as a few forecast before the event kicks off.
If any of you have any meteorological questions or would just like to talk about the weather in general please feel free to in here.
oh okay.
You happen to chase any of the DFW storms yesterday? Lots of action for a 5% tornado day!
SPC had actually upgraded it to a 10% for the DFW metro before the tornadoes occurred. Having busted the previous day near Altus, OK I was discouraged and decided to sit out the DFW day for four reasons which I will line out bellow.
-The models showed the 500mb low stalling and staying to far to the west for there to be sufficient upper level winds to support supercells.
-The target would have been the DFW metro which is an absolute cluster fuck to chase with with the number of cars in it and the way the road network is set up.
-The timing of storms was very early in the day and the window for discrete cells before the front and the QLCS (quasilinear convective system [Squall line]) that it was pushing would pass through and kill the chance of discrete storms.
-Local news helicopters killing off footage sales.
These storms formed in a 1-3 hour window and although a few chasers got good footage, many did not as they could not get into position due to traffic. The hand full of chasers who were able to get lucky with their position got great footage but had very little luck marketing it due to the video captured by the helicopters of the tornado that passed over the Snyder Trucking lot. In hindsight I likely should have chased but it would have been to add stock footage to my portfolio and gather b-roll as apposed to actually attempt footage sales.
Looking into the future, other than today's marginal cold core setup in southeast Kansas there isn't much coming up in the next couple of weeks sop I will get a bit of a break. I was out chasing the last several weeks and did nab 3-5 tornadoes on March 18th near Willow and Mangum, Oklahoma.
Ah. Too bad. I'm kind of surprised anyone was on it - seemed to catch a lot of people by surprise, but I guess some chasers probably live in the area and could scramble on short notice.
Sorry, the forum cut off part of my post. I have fixed it though. Brandon Sullivan was one of the few chasers not from the local area that made the trip, but he chases pretty much every event. You can find his video on YouTube if you look for BNVN1.
Fixed!
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Anyone in the Oklahoma City-Tulsa-Joplin area needs to start preparing for some bad storms later this week:
A Moderate Risk on Day 3 is usually bad news.