rolltide_130

It took 7 years but I finally saw a season of sustained A/AA activity.. although I know that may be a controversial statement in itself lol. The pattern looks somewhat similar to last winter at this time so I'll stick with persistence. 

1345

First high risk 4/20 

1050 tornadoes 

First (and only) high risk May 24th 

I think overall things are improved from 2018, but I'm still wary of the state of the PDO until there starts to be a long term reversal of its pattern (and it doesn't help that the NOAA site I've relied on for it is shut down currently) 

I think we see at least somewhat of an improvement over 2018 with a lot of that reasoning being that 2018, at least in the modern era, is the rock bottom in terms of an active severe weather year. Going to have to closely watch for any sort of late season SSW shenanigans again like what happened last year, but the current pattern looks improved to hopefully set the stage for a better season W of I-35. 

As for Dixie, I imagine we'll get some threats here as well but nothing really sticks out to me about the Dixie season as of right now. Years coming off a Nino are pretty hit-and-miss here, but the PDO plays a large role in that and IIRC its positive still but I don't know where to access that data outside the currently closed NOAA pages. 

32 minutes ago, Kendall said:

NHC really whiffed on this one. Cat 3/4 at landfall a couple days ago and basically barely a Cat 1 now? Swing and miss big time.

It is reitensifying and already absolutely battering the OBX with more to come. Also, saying it is barely a cat 1 is quite literally factually incorrect.

The only big time swing and a miss is your post if we're being honest here. I would take that down if I were you. Very very low quality discussion. 

9 minutes ago, NJwx85 said:

Both the 12z HWRF and HMON have Florence regaining major hurricane status early tomorrow morning.

*IF it stops gulping enough dry air to fill the Sahara desert. I don't see that happening frankly. 

And today was downgraded even further to Slight, with a Marginal where the original MDT was. 

I think we may be locked in to 2018 being the worst severe season on record at this point, even worse than the 1980s... this is abysmal. 

Just now, Quincy said:

In all honesty, the moderate seemed a bit overdone. It's a very complex setup and it doesn't take much to throw a wrench in higher-end potential, especially with a seasonally anomalous setup so far south. 

On the bright side, drought areas have and should continue to get drenched with much needed rainfall. 

That's true. However as for severe, I'm now back into looking towards the next season. 

2019, at least for now, looks a bit more promising in terms of seasonal analogs (I saw 2010, 2007, and 2005 mentioned - 2010 and 2007 both being good years and 2005 not being great but still a massive upgrade over this year), but we'll have to see if that holds or if, when we do get good setups, mesoscale features don't actually ruin it. 

21 hours ago, Quincy said:

You do realize tomorrow was upgraded to a moderate risk? Granted it's not looking like an outbreak of discrete storms, but significant  severe seems likely given the degree of shear and instability expected. 

Before being downgraded back to Enhanced risk. 

On that note, today and tomorrow have both trended down significantly. 

Expect next week to do the same within 36 hours.. that's all I really have to say about that. It will happen. 

Tomorrow is a giant big pile of "meh" on the nightly guidance IMHO. 

Looks like an early/midday MCS washout which may kill the threat entirely unless this just doesn't materialize, although 999/1000 times it does and it puts a damper on things. Not impressed at all tonight. 

Don't rule out a severe threat for the first few days of June - GFS has been holding the idea and some of the thermos are flat out riduclious for Dixie Alley. Shear is meh but if some of the CAPE profiles verify, it may not matter much especially with the SE motion that seems likely. 

3 hours ago, Chinook said:

For this data, I have looked at 2010-2017, 8-year climatology of severe weather reports per day. All numbers come from http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/online/monthly/newm.html

March tornadoes have been relatively low in this 8-year time period, compared to April. This is probably due to weak severe weather setups in March, over a period of years.

--

Edit: a longer-term climatology of tornadoes/month is posted here: http://www.ustornadoes.com/2016/04/06/annual-and-monthly-tornado-averages-across-the-united-states/

--

 

What would happen to the data if you removed April 2011 from the dataset? I noticed that April averaged more tornado reports per day than May but that seems to be heavily skewed by 2011. 

Going to need to watch these next couple of weeks closely.. some alarming analogs are popping up and the trend is towards a massive, low-amplitude trough to sweep through here within the D 10-15 range. Those can spell trouble.. 

Oof, the NAM has a potentially isolated but significant event near Enid on the 12z run for Sunday evening. Dryline bulge close to the triple point.. that can spell trouble. 

6 hours ago, monsoonman1 said:

Wouldn't sleep on Saturday, still some questions but parameters seem to be there.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 

NE Texas may be needing a close watch.. this is definitely one of the more bizzare systems in terms of model handling that I've seen. 

Euro holding on to what may be a potentially substantial threat on Monday across areas E of I-35 and into AR/MO. Almost looks like more of an April/May setup with how much that SE ridge is pumping itself up, and this will be coupled with a strong LLJ response. This could be the first significant severe threat of the year.. 

On 2/5/2018 at 8:45 AM, nrgjeff said:

Kelvin wave may save the first half of severe season. Dixie is due for a whippin'. 

Literally anywhere is due for a whippin by this point. Our last event that was a synoptically evident violent event multiple days out was 4/28/14

5 hours ago, nrgjeff said:

Just need it to hold on until May for my Plains trip. If the Euro weeklies are right about weeks 5-6, action should get rolling in Dixie in March. CFS would keep things quiet longer. With La Nina still going in March I have to learn toward the Euro here. 

What significance would Nina lasting in May have for the plains? Increased rainfall for March/April? I have a trip out there this May as well but I've more or less written off any hope of much action west of the I-35 corridor and I'm more prepped for an E OK/KS year this year. 

11 minutes ago, ouamber said:

Just looked at the GFS and Euro and it disgusts me! Once again...our best chance at a storm or any moisture is being pulled east and south. I thought there was supposed to be a pattern change??? If we get nothing for that February 1st storm...I'm genuinely worried that will be out last chance at winter. Terrible!

At this point, anything putting a dent in the drought is a win. This could be a bad one..

33 minutes ago, AfewUniversesBelowNormal said:

Not much moisture. dont see that changing. 

It's a La Nina winter where we're more prone to NW flow patterns like this, but this often doesn't have a ton of bearing on the Spring. Also, last year had too MUCH moisture and that hampered us. Even with a plains drought it's possible to get higher end events near I-35. An excessively active subtropical jet stream will ruin any setup no matter where it is. 

I do feel like, in terms of overall chaser/severe nerd morale, 2018 is a make or break year. Another bad year might just be the straw that breaks the camel's back for a lot of us who are heavily interested and invested in this side of weather after the consistent record-low activity followed by an extremely disappointing and messy year this year despite the AA raw numbers. I will say I am hopeful that the fact that we're getting our current base NW flow state out of the way in December will open the doors to a much improved overall synoptic pattern once things start thawing in the Spring. Usually having a hyperactive J-F-Early March spells trouble for the peak season save for 2008. 

Just now, Hoosier said:

Yeah I agree.  I was meaning something to derail the Plains season.

Definitely not optimal for the Plains but if I had to pick between that or last year's shenanigans, I'd probably pick the drought. At least with the drought, you can still get action along the I-35 corridor while the High Plains/Panhandle gets baked. 2011 and 2013 were both dumpster fires for the High Plains but had some higher end events closer to I-35. 

1 minute ago, Hoosier said:

How about a Plains drought?

That sometimes means Dixie/OV insanity though as we can get a cap and dryline feature further east. Not good for Plains Chasers but I don't think that's a death knell to the season as a whole. 

36 minutes ago, NWLinnCountyIA said:

Also because the tornadoes themselves were pretty much all rain wrapped farts that lasted 2 minutes before getting inflow chopped by another storm, because many of the days last year featured way too many storms, like the opposite of cap busting. I hope to God we can at least beat the quality of the tornadoes last year.

 

Anyway my guess for this year:

1275 tornadoes 

First high risk: March 13th in AR/LA/MS

A more active polar jet combined with less subtropical activity SHOULD cut down on this problem. Although I'll say that and we'll get some completely new problem this year, as it seems like overall the last few years has had a new yearly theme pop up that has really hampered our severe potential. 

51 minutes ago, Roger Smith said:

1195

First max risk March 31st

That would be quite the Birthday present.. 

Oh goodness I have no idea where to go with this spring.. those 3 analogs posted above are somewhat underwhelming, especially for this sub-forum, but a sample size of 3 is a little bit too small to go off of as mentioned. Also, I haven't really noticed a lot of instances in which we had a year that really fit a previous analog these last few years.. so this is still rather uncharted. 

As for overall tornadoes, I think that we'll take a slight dip in TOTAL tornadoes this next year but we'll gain some in terms of significant tornadoes. I'm also going to go on a limb and say we get our first EF-5 since 2013 this coming Spring, That's a bit of a risky call because of how increasingly subjective and blurry the EF scale seems to have become in recent years, but with hopefully a more active polar jet and less active subtropical jet, we should see some higher end setups actually materialize and not collapse due to STJ messiness like we were plagued with on multiple occasions this past spring.

However, I'm going to stick with persistence and say that March is once again below average this year and that things don't really pick up until April. 

First high risk: April 7th

Number of tornadoes: 1278 with at least 1 EF-5