6/26/2006

You can tell how excited I was for this time period. What a inactive year for the plains. We observed two very weak tornadoes near Limon through the radar, they were not visible. The season is over now and I am heading home!

5/25/2006

Just finished an unsuccessful mission to western IL and eastern IA. Storms in the target area transformed into squall line very quickly after initiation. Spent the night in Davenport, IA. Will be ferrying to NE for a possible mission on Friday. Forecast to come later.

5/20/2006

We finally made it out to the plains! We are currently in Salina, KS, roasting under the record heat. Models show a couple of weak chances for storms for the next two days, there doesn't appear to be much of a threat for supercells. First decent shot at "real" storms appears Tuesday across the northern plains, if were luckly we might might get a couple of chases in this week.

5/15/2006

Well, we are still in Boulder, CO. We are supposed to be chasing tornadoes, but instead we are hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. Back to weather...0z GFS showed showed some hope with the ridge over the Rockies breaking down and a trough scooting through the plains. This is the first real chase opportunity for us. We are hoping for a test run this week chasing on the north side of the ridge in hopes of finding something.

5/7/2006

Tuesday May 9th is starting to take shape as a decent chase day. The deep layer shear had been removed from the high instability area, but as of the 12z NAM on the 8th they have aligned over central/eastern Oklahoma. The low level shear also seems to increase with each model run, which is always a good trend. However, as Josh said we will not have missions until "11 May due to non-technical readiness issues." All the scientific vehicles are ready!! Oh Well!

5/3/2006

A shortwave trough will be moving across the southern plains under the weak ridge over the rockies. This feature will give the southern plains an active week for severe weather. There will continue to be southwest flow across the southern plains into the weekend. The ensemble forecasts continue to show a trough across the western US leading to a active mid/late May. ROTATE will continue to be in Boulder for logistical reasons. We don't have a exact ETA in the plains yet.

5/01/2006

The trough over the plains now will lead to some severe weather for today and tomorrow. I just looked to the OKC sounding for Tuesday, looked very good minus the weak midlevel flow (30knts). Lots of CAPE and shear would lead to some supercells (probably HP's) across the warm sector. After this system, we'll have weak northwest flow for a couple of days. The next system, which is forecasted to be very strong will land in the plains around May 9th-10th. Also looks as if we will be dealing with a thermal-nuclear cap of 29C at 850hPa. ROTATE will be operational by then and will be out roaming the plains.

We are continuing preparations for ROTATE this spring. I will be the only person here in Boulder until Monday the 1st working mainly on DOW3. The start date for intercept missions is on May 5th. However, I believe we will be in Boulder a little longer. The medium range models are showing a ridge over the Rockies giving the plains weak northwesterly flow. The ridge is forecasted to weaken around the May 5th time frame, leading to weak southwesterly flow across the southern plains. I believe the first mission will come around May 9th. We'll see if my "guesscast" will verify!

4/27/2006

I arrived in Boulder, CO tonight. Not much to update here. I forgot how beautiful the mountains are!