ITS HOT

3 days in a row of either breaking or tieing the record high.

June 21st Previous Record High: 93 (2002), Tied it this year.
June 22nd Previous Record High: 93 (2002), broke it reaching 97 Degrees.
June 23rd Previous Record High: 91 (1998), Broke it reaching 100 Degrees.
June 24th Previous Record High: 96(2005), ??? My Forecast: 99 Degrees.
June 25th Previous Record High: 97(2005), ?? My Forecast: 98 Degrees.
June 26th Previous Record High: 96(2005), ?? My Forecast: 96 Degrees.
June 27th Previous Record High: 97(2005), ?? My Forecast: 98 Degrees.

So its quiet possible we could have nearly a whole week of record temperatures. Although this doesn't seem to quiet out of the ordinary. Just look at 2005 where we had a new record from 24th-27th.

I'm not sure what the dewpoints were back in 2005, but all this week we've had dewpoints in the upper 60s to lower 70s. That makes the heat index to nearly 110 degrees! Needless to say be careful out there and keep hydrated!

As for past this week temperatures should fall off a few degrees but will remain in the 90s. Chances for rain should increase as we head into next week so there's a chance of some cooling off in those periods too.

Reports from the Last Two Months Part 2

Once Andy left the US still experienced the "Ridge Fest" for atleast another week. Finally on June 7th I decided to go chase alone. This was my first time chasing alone and it was much harder navigating around.

As you can see here on the 300 mb chart at least some form of a jet stream across Colorado which looking eastward difluence out providing some upper level divergence (indicated by the contours of yellow on the map) This was not seen for atleast the previous 3 weeks so obviously I was excited to finally see some kind of cyclonic development.


At the lower levels of the atmosphere (850 mb) a low was forming on leeward side of the Rockies another typical occurrence that was not happening in the last 3 weeks. With these factors in place it aided with moisture advection from the south with a week frontal zone near the KS/Neb border. There was also a cold front located west of Topeka that can't really been seen by this chart.

With these and of course other countless parameters the Storm prediction center put a moderate risk for Northeastern KS, Southeastern NEB, and Northwestern MO.

My original target was somewhere west of Topeka. I decided on this area because this is where the frontal zone was located and figured this is where the thunderstorm initiation would form. However, once I was driving out towards Topeka I noticed a good amount of high cirrus clouds. This does not help with instability and forming convection. I then decided to start heading north because I noticed cumbus clouds began to build. As I updated the radar on my phone I saw the first storm had formed near Marysville, KS. I then raced along highway 75 northbound, figuring that there would also be some storms developing south of the first cell. Sure enough it did and here are some early pictures of that storm:

There was some weak updrafts forming on the rear backside of the storm, which is typically where you find rotation/tornadoes however this storm was still very early in its life span. After seeing this storm not materializing much, I decided to go after the first storm that formed near Marysville, which was now located east of Beatrice, Nebraska. On my way there I saw literally hundreds of storm chasing. Even some of the massive vortex 2 research project (read more at http://www.vortex2.org/home/) I also saw Reed Timmer in his dominator(a vehile designed to drive INSIDE a tornado). If you have ever watched storm chasers on discovery channel you know who this is.

As I was on storm #2 there was a wall cloud which can somewhat seen here:
After this everything went down hill. Got caught up in HORRIBLE traffic on I-29, which was a mixture of scared regular people driving like 80 year olds or crazed storm chasers driving like...crazed storm chasers. Storm #1, which was from those first two pictures was quickly intensifying and was then tornado warned. Here is a picture of it nearing its mature stage:
It was very difficult catching up to storm #1 and I decided to give up since the sun was nearing sunset. There was a brief tornado from storm #1 during the time I decided to call it quits.

This was not the end of the road for me but also not the end of disappointment.

On June 10th the setup was near the same as June 7th except the frontal boundary was south of Lawrence around Wichita running west to east. The lee rocky mts low also developed in a slightly difference location. I had to make a tough choice here on my original target area. It was clear it was either going to be West or East of Wichita. SPC first had a moderate risk located northwest of Wichita but later changed to southeast. I was not sure about the move but the models were pointing to greater helecity (the tendency for updrafts in thunderstorms to rotate) east of Wichita. I decided to go with what SPC was saying and went to Augusta, Kansas (east of Wichita)

Along this trip I bought along my girlfriend Mahleah and her friend Natalie. I was surprised I could actually get people to come with me as I drove over 12 hours and for the most part had a very disappointing day. What ended up happening was a classic supercell developed near Dodge City. It turns out here the greatest helecity occurred and also a good amount of positive vorticity advenction. This can be seen here in the 00 Z analysis of that day:


The storms that we intercepted in southeastern Kansas just would not rotate much. If you liked a lot of rain and lightning it was a blast though (no pun intended :P) A few interesting images were taken though:


These pictures were taken south of Howard, Kansas. After the storm showed a little rotation located on that last picture, the cluster of storms started to lack any rotational features. It all just became a big area of heavy rain, small hail, and lightning. I experienced some of the heaviest rain I ever saw though while driving. I had to pull over and let the storm pass some while on highway 75 north of Independence, Kansas. Finally I caught some great distant lightning as we about 20 miles away from the cluster of storms.

Reports from the Last Two Months Part 1

Last time I posted, Andrew had just arrived and we were both excited about the month of May. This is typically the most active month in the plain states for severe weather. However, this year was absolutely awful. What occurred was what the storm chasing folks called a "ridge fest." Basically this meant that in the upper levels of the atmosphere a large ridge of high pressure was "blocking" any developing troughs from reaching the lower 48. The jet stream, which aids in the development of large scale upward motion, was none existent in the Central plains for about 2 weeks time. This of course occurred when I finally finished school and had an entire week of work off. Instead of driving out to the middle of nowhere watching convection build in the late afternoon, we were left watching lovely boring blue skies.



However, prior to the "ridge fest" we did get two chases in together. The first chased occurred on Friday May 1st, 2009. Our target location was Wichita Falls, Texas. As I woke up at 7 am that morning I started saying to myself, "I cannot believe I'm driving 8 hours to see storms", but in all honestly it was not a bad first chase at all. We arrived in Wichita Falls around 3 pm with the first storm showing up southwest of Wichita Falls. We raced southward as I predicted at least a few more storms to develop along a weak frontal boundary. Sure enough we ended up intercepting a decent supercell near Seymour, Texas.

Here is an image of the surface chart at 4 pm for the Texas Panhandle. Note the large temperature gradients as well as a dry line in place (a 19 degree dewpoint vs. 50!)


Although no tornadoes did form, We did witness a good structured wall cloud producing some weak rotation. We also caught a very brief (seconds only!) gustnado on Andrew's camera. Gustnadoes are produced by a thunderstorm's gust front and are seen as quickly rotating spin ups of dust. However, this storm would die off very quickly as the cold front pushed southward bring much cooler dry air thus "killing off" instability in the atmosphere.

Here are some images I took of that day. Please disregard the weird effects my camera does (although it looks cool not what I really wanted)


Following that day, we were presented with a few opportunities to chase but the month of May is not only busy for storm chasers but also college students. With that in mind I dropped Andrew off with his friend Nick from Nebraska. On May 13th they intercepted a EF1 Tornado that went through the town of Kirksville, Missouri. Here is the best image of that tornado from them:
video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsUNqn-I1j8

On Friday May 15th just 2 days after Andrew intercepted the Kirksville tornado, Nick and Andrew drove back down here to Lawrence. The setup was looking good earlier in the day of Lawrence, but by the time they arrived here the storm was already on top of Lawrence. We then travelled south to Ottawa, Kansas jumping on I-35 in hopes of seeing some interesting outflow from the storm. However, we only witnessed a weak boundary of shelf clouds and soon just endless amounts of ordinary rain.

After this quick chase the great "ridge fest" of 2009 began and thus my adventures with Andrew with me were done. However, June has been a much better month for severe weather. A detailed report of what I've seen in the month comes tomorrow in part 2 !