CheeselandSkies

CFS took a little bit of a dump on the chase prospects for my vacation that I booked on Monday for May 18-27 after several straight runs of it showed at least one trough moving across the central CONUS during that timeframe (what I based my decision on). Still should be at least one opportunity, whether it's good enough to draw me out remains to be seen.

FWIW (which hasn't been a whole lot of late*), SPC saw fit to introduce a risk area for Days 6 and 7 (Tuesday-Wednesday). The former extends into Iowa. *Wording for Day 7 event hints at a more ominous look for the Plains, which coming from someone other than Broyles carries a little more weight in my mind.

Well lookie there, spring at last!

I would love to be proven wrong, but it's hard to be optimistic looking at the models now and having to clear my car off before I can go to work for the second time this week on April 19th.

*Sigh.* Already steeling myself for another wasted spring. What does it take to get an active severe pattern this decade (after the extremes of April 2011, of course)? La Nina, El Nino, anomalous warmth, anomalous cold, nothing works. Need to see a year where events like June 16th-18th, 2014, April 9th, 2015 and May 24th-25th, 2016 are part of a sustained pattern and not just diamonds in the rough...and this isn't going to be it.

What I don't get is how is it even possible for it to be above normal in WI/MI/ME but below normal in Florida? Cold air comes from the north, warm air from the south.

Can I rage quit the atmosphere?

Woodward, OK tornado was in early April. Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

I will laugh if southern Missouri ends up with more snow than us in mid-April.

I recall 2012 being the worst severe season of the lot. The "season" was essentially March 2nd and April 14th. I remember being totally stoked for all that March and early April heat this far north to lead to some epic severe weather outbreaks (think mid-March 1990) when those powerhouse early season systems plowed into an airmass that they didn't have to modify from Arctic conditions at the 11th hour, but aside from those two days (one well southeast and one well west of here), such systems never came. It hardly even stormed around here, and then we baked. Wisconsin recorded a measly four tornadoes for the entire year, and Illinois was well below average as well. I'm still convinced April 2011 broke something in the atmosphere's ability to produce a proper tornado season. Even the ensuing May was weird, dead for the first three weeks followed by three more days of extreme violence, then quiet again. 2013 had the back half of May and the fall outbreak in IL/IN and that's about it. 2014, until now as bad as I thought it could get in terms of a winter hangover, had April 27-28 and June 16-18, not much of note apart from that. The few setups in May were tempered by lingering cold air. 2015 had a certain event three years ago to the day that I still can't think about too carefully without wanting to put a gun to my head. Early-mid May were fairly active, but what looked like it would be the biggest day (May 16th) couldn't hit its ceiling due to lingering junk convection and cool outflow over all but a small portion of what would have been a Plains-wide risk area. There was one regional opportunity in late June which I chased and was looking right at where a tornado was, but it was rain-wrapped UNlike that certain April event. Then it had the anomalous December outbreaks related to the Super Nino. 2016 had the active February in Dixie and the East. Mid-March had one opportunity in the upper Midwest region, when I got my only glimpse of an actual tornado, but it was just that, a glimpse in the lightning flashes of a large cone funnel hanging down to the tree line after dark. May produced three potential career highlight chase days on the 9th and 24-25 but with little activity otherwise. My vacation started on the 30th. Ouch, and June turned out to be one of the quietest on record until the 22nd, the same day as the previous year when another opportunity presented itself in the same area of north-central Illinois. I got on a tornadic supercell but once again any tornadoes were buried in murk. Last year was pure garbage in terms of quality chase days, except for that one in FREAKIN' FEBRUARY! I couldn't chase because of a prior commitment, which I made because it was FREAKIN' FEBRUARY and the northern target didn't really look like anything until the day of.

How the heck does the 12Z GFS wipe the Gulf bone dry next Monday (week from tomorrow) and then have upper 60s to the Red River by Wednesday evening?

I don't even remember it getting this cold in April 2014, the other recent example of a winter that wouldn't let go. Most of JFM was brutally cold but by April, temperatures were at least tolerable although still below normal. We sure as heck weren't seeing teens for lows and 30s for highs...and at least we built up a decent snowpack during that winter. Way too many stretches of bare tundra during this one.

Verbatim that run is pretty meh. Thursday would be a decent day over the Plains if it wasn't totally capped, and it speeds the system up with the front coming across the MS at 12Z Friday instead of ~21Z. Might be some gusty morning thundershowers for us before another ripping, chilly northwest wind takes hold. By the time it gets to you closer to peak heating, the system is occluded with deep layer flow parallel to the cold front.

TORR with the storm southeast of Shreveport based on a CC drop co-located with the couplet at about 2352Z, although the couplet actually looked stronger for a few frames before that. Circulation looks to be getting rained into by the cluster enveloping it from the west now.

If nothing else, the end of next week's system is at least a sign we might be turning the corner toward a less frigid and more convectively active pattern. The biting northwest wind today was not pleasant.

Very narrow band of marginal surface CAPE along the front though...looks like moisture will be an issue. Dew not even up to 60. Lapse rate map is rather eyebrow-raising, though, at least at 18Z.

Quincy is not impressed. Neither is Jeff. https://stormtrack.org/community/threads/2018-severe-wx-chase-season-discussion.29986/page-3

Can you hear it?

Yeah, things look to ramp up sooner than I'd anticipated given the pattern we've been stuck in. Even yesterday's action kind of came out of left field for me, although we never even sniffed the warm sector here in WI. A week prior I'd have told you no chance of any severe anywhere east of the Rockies through at least April 15.

The view outside my apartment building, prior to spending 10 minutes scraping my car off in a biting north wind before work this morning.

It would be helpful for non-mets if posts like this with multiple teleconnection acronyms could include a quick summation of what that means for sensible weather in this sub and the rest of the CONUS. This one does (increased severe potential), but I find that's not always the case. I know what MJO stands for, but haven't the foggiest about what it means for it to be into the IO or what the AAM crashing almost -3 sigma means.

Same old same old, dry and cold for southern Wisconsin. Any weather of consequence misses us to the east/south (this past weekend's snow, tomorrow's severe) or north (tonight/tomorrow's snow). #AprilFail #Fapril (February in April)

I despise eastern trough dominated springs, which seem to be the rule rather than the exception. Although, I remember April 2011 as being raw, gray and convectively uneventful as we were stuck on the cool side of most of the systems after the April 10th one (which, maddeningly, produced most of its tornadoes NORTH of southern Wisconsin). Even had snow showers on the 18th. I just realized something, going back and rereading the April 9th, 2011 Day 2 outlooksvalid for April 10th. It always seemed to me like that event underperformed its potential based on the wording of those Day 2 outlooks, even though by Wisconsin standards it was fairly significant (16 tornadoes, 1 EF3 and 3 EF2), the wording -particularly in the initial one- made it sound like it would be April 27 for the upper Midwest (2 1/2 weeks before anyone knew what "April 27" meant). Now I know why that is...IT WAS BROYLES!!!

Exactly. It is ****-ing spring. Time for tracking severe weather threats down south and getting psyched for chasing. OTOH, the closest thing the upper Midwest/Great Lakes has ever had to an April 27th, Palm Sunday 1965, occurred in the midst of a winter that refused to go quietly with cold and snow lingering over much of the affected area in the preceding weeks (or so I've read here). Seems like that had a lot more significant (blizzard-type) snowstorms, though. Just had some little showers pop up and moisten the parking lot, and it's the first precipitation I recall seeing in at least two weeks, since that snow I was semi-psyched for a couple days ago missed us to the southwest.