Here Comes the Summer Pattern

Sumer is icumen in,
Loudly sing, cuckoo!
Grows the seed and blows the mead,
And springs the wood anew;
Sing, cuckoo!
Ewe bleats harshly after lamb,
Cows after calves make moo;
Bullock stamps and deer champs,
Now shrilly sing, cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo
Wild bird are you;
Be never still, cuckoo!

Right. It looks like we’re about to have our hands full, what with bleating ewes, cows making moo, and so on. There are, however, some things that the old folk song fails to mention. The polar jet lifting north, for instance. Weakening mid-level winds. Temperatures at 700 mb heating up, with the 12 degree centigrade threshold expanding across the southern and central plains and ushering in the era of capping. I don’t know why the ancient songwriter didn’t address these matters. They’re as much a part of sumer–that is to say, summer–as stamping bullocks.

Here in Caledonia, yesterday was hot and today promises to be even hotter, around 95 degrees, before a cold front blows through tonight and brings relief. After that, we look to be in for a bout of unsettled weather. I’ll take it, even though it may inconvenience at least one outdoor gig I’ll be playing this weekend.

The summer weather pattern is on the way, putting the damper on storm chasing in the southern and central plains. Considering how devastatingly active this spring has been, that’s probably a good thing. I doubt that the people in towns such as Joplin, Missouri, will lament this season’s passing. As for those who chased storms in Dixie Alley and the southern plains–and there were more chasers than ever this year–you certainly got your fill of action, and some of you saw far more than you cared to. There are some amazing stories that have come out of the storm chasing community, and my hat is off to those of you who stepped in to help in tornado-stricken areas.

This was the worst of all seasons to be sidelined due to financial constraints, but that’s how it has been with me and with others who have taken a hit in the pocketbook from this rotten economy. I’m frankly happy to see the crest of storm season 2011 passing; I much prefer to occupy my mind with more productive thoughts than fretting over what I’m missing.

In any event, the playground is shifting northward. It’s not there quite yet, but it’s on the way. Troughs that had been digging deep into the southern plains are now beginning to ripple across the northern tier and Canada, and lately, mesoscale convective systems have been cropping up regularly in the SPC discussions. Those are the specialty of the state where I live.

If there’s any advantage to living in the Great Lakes, it’s that we’re close enough to the summer jet stream that it can still dip down out of Canada into our neck of the woods. And while northwest flow isn’t exactly your classic chase scenario, it can deliver some occasional surprises. Illinois in particular has gotten some whopping summer tornadoes–and for those of you who don’t chase east of the Mississippi, I don’t mind telling you that central and northern Illinois is fabulous chase territory. Also, closer to home, even garden variety arcus clouds are sublime to watch sweeping in at the Lake Michigan shoreline.

For better or worse, sumer is icumen in and storm season is winding down. Most people aren’t sorry for the change. But most people don’t view storms the way that storm chasers do. I guess we’re a bit cuckoo.

June 8, 2011 by
Filed Under: Nature, Storm Chasing, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Intense Autumn Storm System Arrives Tomorrow in the Great Lakes

I’m not going to try to be particularly clever in writing this post. Instead, I’m going to throw a bunch of weather maps and a few soundings at you and let them tell the story.

I will say that the weather system that is shaping up for late tonight on into Wednesday for the Great Lakes has the potential to be of historic proportions. In terms of sea level pressure, I’ve seen a number of comparisons to the great Armistice Day Storm of November 11, 1940. However, there are two significant differences: this storm is a bit earlier in the year, and the forecast pressure has been consistently and significantly deeper. The Armistice Day storm dropped to 979 millibars; this one may be in the 960s. In other words, we may see a record-setting barometric pressure with this system.

The bottom line is, this thing will be a wind machine like few we’ve ever seen. Here’s the current forecast discussion from the weather forecast office in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

LOW PRESSURE IN THE SOUTHERN PLAINS WILL RACE NWD AND PHASE WITH A
LOW OVER THE DAKOTAS AND RAPIDLY DEEPEN AS THE UPPER TROUGH DIGS
ACROSS THE UPPER MS VALLEY. THIS WILL LEAD TO VERY STRONG DYNAMICS
ALONG THE TRAILING COLD FRONT LATE TONIGHT. EXPECT STRONG TO SEVERE
STORMS TO DEVELOP ALONG THE FRONT AND RACE EAST. A 70KT LLJ AND
115KTS AT H5 INDICATE IT WON/T TAKE MUCH TO GET SVR WINDS WITH THIS
LINE OF STORMS LATE TONIGHT. A VERY STRONG PRESSURE COUPLET...ON THE
ORDER OF 6MB/3 HRS WILL FOLLOW THE COLD FRONT. THIS WILL LEAD TO
STRONG WINDS DEVELOPING BEHIND THE FRONT. BUFKIT WIND PROFILES SHOW
MIXING INTO THE 55-60KT LAYER AT 2K FT. IT IS LOOKING INCREASINGLY
LIKELY THAT WE/LL SEE SUSTAINED WINDS AROUND 35 MPH AND WIND GUSTS
OVER 50...AND CLOSER TO 60 ALONG THE LAKE SHORE. AS SUCH WE EXPANDED
THE HIGH WIND WATCH TO COVER THE ENTIRE CWA.

WINDS WILL DECREASE TUESDAY NIGHT AS MIXING WANES...BUT WILL
INCREASE CONSIDERABLY AGAIN WEDNESDAY. THIS IS A SLOW MOVING STORM
THAT WILL RESULT IN A PROLONGED WIND EVENT FOR THE CWA.

I’m not going to add a lot to that, but I do want to mention the possibility of tornadoes during a brief window of time. Hodographs preceding the front curve nicely, with 1 km storm-relative helicity exceeding 300 showing on this morning’s 6Z NAM sounding for Grand Rapids at 17Z tomorrow afternoon. If enough instability develops–and with winds like the ones we’re looking at, it won’t take much–then we could certainly see some spin-ups as the squall line blows through. And if there’s enough clearing to allow discrete storms to fire ahead of the front, chances for tornadoes increase all the more.

With storms rocketing along to the northeast at over 60 miles an hour, the thought of chasing them is laughable. Anyone out to intercept them will have to watch the radar, position as strategically as possible, and then hope for the best. Serendipity will be the name of the game. That game could begin as early as noon here in Michigan, and it looks to be over before 5:00 p.m.

Not the wind, though. That’ll be hanging around for a while.  Batten down the hatches, campers–we are in for one heck of a blast.

Without further ado, here are some weather maps and NAM forecast soundings from this morning’s 6Z run. Click on the images to enlarge them. Just look at that surface low! Pretty jaw-dropping, I’d say.

Forecast maps for 18Z Tuesday, October 26, 2010

nam-slp-for-18z-tues
nam-850mb-for-18z-tues
nam-500mb-for-18z-tues
nam-1km-helicity-for-18z-tues


Soundings

kgrr-nam-for-17z-tues

Grand Rapids, MI (forecast hour 17Z)

ksbn-nam-for-16z-tues

South Bend, IN (forecast hour 16Z)

kmie-nam-for-17z-tues

Muncie, IN (forecast hour 17Z)

October 25, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Michigan, Nature, Outdoors, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

No Second Season? Please Say It Ain’t So!

I’d been looking forward to the shift in weather with fall’s arrival, but now that autumn is officially here,  I dunno, boys and girls. I’m beginning to suspect that the mythical “second season” may not materialize for storm chasers this year–not in the Great Lakes, anyway. You folks out west will no doubt get your little romp, but up here in the tundra land of Michigan instability appears to be a thing of the past. I have to remind myself that it’s been only a week since one heck of a squall line blew through and caused extensive tree damage in my area. A couple of days later, though, as the system lifted out of the region, the moisture gave way to the relentlessly dry, crystal-blue skies of autumn, and I have the unsettling feeling that the die has been cast for the remainder of the year.

Today’s 4-8 day outlook from the SPC doesn’t make me feel any better about our immediate prospects:

 VALID 021200Z - 071200Z

   ...DISCUSSION...
   MODELS ARE IN GOOD AGREEMENT WITH THE PATTERN EVOLUTION THROUGH
   ABOUT SUN/D5 WITH LARGE TROUGH AMPLIFYING ACROSS THE GREAT LAKES AND
   ERN STATES AND AN UPPER RIDGE OVER THE ROCKIES. THIS PATTERN WILL
   RESULT IN A LACK OF INSTABILITY E OF THE ROCKIES WITH HIGH PRESSURE
   AT THE SURFACE. 

   WHILE THE TROUGH IS FORECAST TO LINGER IN SOME FORM OVER THE ERN
   CONUS...THERE IS MUCH DIFFERENCE ASSOCIATED WITH THE BREAKDOWN OF
   THE RIDGE AS A NEW TROUGH AFFECTS EITHER THE PACIFIC NW/GFS
   SOLUTION/ OR THE ENTIRE W COAST/ECMWF SOLUTION/.  REGARDLESS...THERE
   IS LITTLE CHANCE OF SEVERE WEATHER GIVEN MEAGER MOISTURE AND
   INSTABILITY.

   ..JEWELL.. 09/29/2010

“Lack of instability..little chance of severe weather…meager moisture…”–mmmph, doesn’t sound very promising, does it? I console myself with the thought that autumn has barely begun, and a nice fetch of moisture can still come chugging northward on the leading edge of some great dynamics to make life interesting. It happened as late as November 10, 2002, in Van Wert, Ohio. It happened just three years ago on October 18, 2007, across the Midwest, including here in Michigan. So my rule of thumb is, don’t pack away the laptop until the snows fly.

Still, as daytime temperatures retreat into the mid 60s and dewpoints drop to 50 degrees and below, it’s kind of hard to believe that the end of the parade isn’t long gone, and that last week’s wind event wasn’t just the cleanup crew. Good thing that this season’s “Storm Chasers” series will be airing soon and letting us all relive the glory days of 2010. After that, though…man, it sure is a long stretch from here to next March.

September 29, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Michigan, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

While I Was Out Chasing Sunday’s Storms…

Win a few, lose a few, the saying goes. Maybe so, but when it comes to chasing storms in Michigan, sometimes the losses seem just flat-out absurd.

Take this last Sunday, for instance. Kurt Hulst and I traveled over a hundred miles in order to intercept a storm down by Plainwell and track with it through the jungles of Allegan and Barry Counties, searching for a decent location for viewing. Meanwhile, a cell blew up just to our north and put down a tornado just four miles southwest of my apartment in Caledonia. If that isn’t a swift kick in the pratt with the steel-toed boot of irony, I don’t know what is.

True, it was a weak tornado; and true, it was probably rain-wrapped and hard to see; and true, it lasted only a minute or so, and catching it would have been pure serendipity. But still…just four freeking miles away… In the words of the inimitable Charlie Brown, “AAAUUUGGHHHHH!!!”

Sunday wasn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened to me, either. A few years ago, I was heading back north through Indiana, homeward bound from a futile chase, when my buddy Bill Oosterbaan called to inform me that a tornado had just passed through Caledonia. If I had been home, I could have stepped outside my sliding door and watched it blow through a couple blocks to my east. But no, that would have been too simple. I had to go gallivanting all over the countryside in search of what, in my absence, was delivered gift-wrapped to my backyard.

Chase storms for a while and you’ll find yourself collecting flukes, ironies, hindsights, and head-banging experiences like some people collect porcelain animals. It just goes with the territory, particularly if you live in the Great Lakes, where picking a chase target is nine times out of ten just an educated crapshoot.

Well, what the heck–at least Kurt and I saw a fairly impressive wall cloud east of Plainwell, out near West Gilkey Lake. We were too far away to confirm rotation, but the cloud was morphing rapidly, displaying obvious rapid motion. For a minute I thought it might even be putting down a tornado, but at our distance, we couldn’t make out enough details to know one way or the other. I called in a report to KGRR, then watched the storm fizzle and die shortly after.

Here one second, gone the next–that’s how it goes here in Michigan, supercell heaven of the Midwest.

July 21, 2010 by
Filed Under: Michigan, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Tornado Event Shaping Up for Tomorrow in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin

nam_krst
Look at this skew-T and hodograph and tell me they’re not to die for. They’re the 00Z NAM for tomorrow, 21Z, at Rochester, Minnesota. Click on the images to enlarge them. (Apologies for the weird pulldown menu obscuring parts of the images. I don’t know why that happened.)

Unfortunately, I can’t afford to chase tomorrow, but I have a hunch that those who do will be rewarded for their efforts. This particular sounding is just a sampler. I’m not sure what to think about that surface-based CAPE. It’s

nam_krst-hodo
over 6,000 J/kg. If that even comes near to verifying, the western Great Lakes could be in for a convective blitzkrieg. The 1 km EHI is 5.8 and the 4 km VGP is .968.  Lifted index at -12.6–can that be right? I guess I kind of suspect readings like that–the instability seems just plain absurd.

Wish I could make it out there. Good luck to those who do, and stay safe. For a summer setup, this thing looks insane. I will be watching the radar tomorrow evening, that’s for sure.

July 13, 2010 by
Filed Under: Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , ,

A Glance at Friday: Severe Weather in the Great Lakes

It now seems a sure bet that the eastern Great Lakes is due for a spate of severe weather. The SPC is presently making it out to be a linear event, as is typical of cold fronts sweeping through our region, but the wind profiles suggest the possibility of supercells and tornadoes.

fourth-patterns-in-eb
If you go by the present, 12Z NAM run, central Ohio appears to be the sweet spot, with a variety of parameters converging over or near a bullseye of 2,000 j/kg SBCAPE. Here are a few maps for forecast hour 21Z to give you an idea. Click on the images to enlarge them. The first shows the aforementioned SBCAPE (shaded), sea level pressure (contours), and surface wind barbs. Not a bad bit of instability if this scenario pans out.

fourth-patterns-in-eb-mscz-1
In the second image, you can see a nice overlay of 55-60 kt 500 mb winds (shaded) over 35-40 kt 850 mb winds (contours). The wind barbs are for the 850 mb level. The H5 winds veer still further to the west. I think it’s safe to say that shear won’t be an issue, and 1 km VGP, not shown, is as high as 0.4 in the area of heightened instability. Helicity maxes are well to the north, but I wonder what kind of effective SRH we’ll wind up with where it counts.

fourth-patterns-in-eb_0
The third map shows a Theta-e lobe pushing up into northern Ohio with a surface lifted index between -4 and -6 perched squarely over the axis. That should get the job done.

In the last map, three different significant tornado parameters–the well-known STP, the APRWX tornado index, and the Stensrud tornado risk–all converge nicely over the same spot near Newark, Ohio. Three overlays can be a bit difficult to decipher, so let me help: the STP is shaded, the APRWX is tightly contoured like an onion, and the Stensrud has broader

fourth-patterns-in-eb
contours, with its highest value circling the APRWX in a yellow ring.

All this to say, Friday may have some potential. I don’t get too excited about cold front events around here–not that we have many options in the Great Lakes, but a steady diet of squall lines has a way of lowering a person’s expectations. Of course, as soon as you let down your guard, along comes the exception to prove that storms in our area can and do deliver. Maybe this round will prove to one of those occasions. We’ll find out two days hence.

May 5, 2010 by
Filed Under: Michigan, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Getting Ready for the Skunk Cabbage

Here’s some news that will put joy in your heart: skunk cabbage days are almost here! (And all the people shouted, “Hurrah!” and donned their festive garments.)

It’s true. Sometime within the next three weeks or so, the odd, purple cowls of Symplocarpus foetidus will start pushing up through the mud and matted leaves of the wetlands where they grow, generating enough heat to melt their way through the ice and snow and provide a microclimate for early insects. Here in the Great Lakes, the skunk cabbage is the year’s first wildflower, and I always get happy when I see it begin to show. It’s a charming little plant, though there’s nothing particularly pretty about it. This plant doesn’t care about “pretty.” It’s all about character and nail-toughness. Skunk cabbage has the grit of a pioneer.

It also has the smell of a pioneer, as you’ll find out if you ever hold a piece of the broken flower or leaf up to your nose and get a whiff. It smells a lot like an armpit that hasn’t been washed in a month. Taken all around, this is not the kind of wildflower you’d feel inclined to gather a bunch of and take home to stick in a vase. But, appearing with the robins and redwing blackbirds, it is nevertheless a welcome harbinger of the warmer months. I’m surprised that some Michigan town hasn’t claimed it and instituted an annual skunk cabbage festival. Not too surprised, though.

Speaking of warmer months, they don’t seem to be in any hurry to put in an appearance, and I’m starting to wonder whether Punxatawney Phil might not have been conservative in his forecast of another six weeks of winter. Another major winter storm is poised to dump another 6-10″ of snow on West Michigan this evening through tomorrow, and more snow is in the forecast for the next ten days.

Snow, snow, and yet again snow. If you like the stuff, just stick around. Sooner or later, Michigan always delivers.

February 21, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Michigan, Nature, Outdoors, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , ,

An October Great Lakes Wind Machine

Geeze, is it ever blowing out there! The low pressure system that I’ve been harping about this past week has been moving through the Great Lakes, bringing with it temperatures in the low 70s, rich dewpoints, heavy rain, and wind gusts as high as 48 miles an hour.

6km-shear-nam-123110
Here’s a grab of the current conditions at 9:15 eastern time. Click to enlarge.

The 980 mb low has nudged off the Minnesota border into Ontario and continues to deepen rapidly as it heads east. You can see the line of storms firing along the cold front all the way down into the Gulf. Mississippi and Alabama got hammered earlier with an outbreak of supercells, but that action seems to have died down now. Not so the wind here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It began picking up from the south in the afternoon, but it has now veered to the southwest with the passage of the cold front.

Temperatures have dropped over ten degrees over the past hour or so. The KGRR station ob says 58 degrees, but just 60 miles to my east, KLAN is registering 70 degrees.

There won’t be much left of the leaves come tomorrow morning. This system has been typical of a Michigan October–a wind machine that denudes the trees, delivering the coup de grace to the warm season and requiring those of us who live in the Great Lakes to gird our minds for winter. Ugh! These next five months won’t be fun.

October 30, 2009 by
Filed Under: Life, Outdoors, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Storm System Poised to Hit the Great Lakes on Friday

Looks like one heck of a storm system will be moving into the Great Lakes this Friday. Today’s 18Z GFS shows a potent, 976 mb low centered on the Minnesota/Canada border on the 30th at 18Z, deepening to 972 mb as it moves northeast into Ontario by 00Z. The ECMWF is less aggressive in its timing, and I hope it’s the more accurate of the two long-range models, since I think it offers better potential for more than just straight-line winds.

While they may not be perfectly in sync, both models agree that we’ll be seeing some heavy weather on the 30th. It’s not exactly a storm chaser’s dream scenario, with little in the way of directional shear and with storm motions in the warp speed range. I see “linear” written all over this event. But this time of year, I’ll take whatever I can get and be grateful.

Positives: dewpoints in the 60s reaching into Michigan, at least a semblance of CAPE at around 500 j/kg, and certainly no lack of bulk shear. Judging by the size of the system and the tightness of the isobars, we are in for a real October leaf-stripper.

And here comes the old disclaimer we all know and love: we’ll see what further model runs reveal. The NAM will be adding its paint to the picture shortly. I wish it would agree with the Euro in slowing the system down, giving Indiana and Michigan a good dose of moisture along with backed surface winds. Fingers crossed and hoping for a gift, because this will very likely be my last shot at anything resembling severe convection until March or April, 2010.

October 26, 2009 by
Filed Under: Storm Chasing, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Midweek Severe Weather Potential for the Midwest

A significant weather event appears to be shaping up for the northern plains and cornbelt this coming Tuesday. For all you weather buffs and storm chasers, here are a few maps from the 18Z NAM-WRF run for 7 p.m. CT Tuesday night (technically, 00Z Wednesday), courtesy of F5 Data.

A couple items of note:

* The NAM-WRF is much less aggressive with capping than the GFS.  The dark green 700mb isotherm that stretches diagonally through central Minnesota marks the 6 C contour, and the yellow line to its south is the 8 C isotherm.

* The F5 Data proprietary APRWX Tornado Index shows a bullseye of 50, which is quite high (“Armageddon,” as F5 software creator Andy Revering puts it). The Significant Tornado Parameter is also pretty high, showing a  tiny bullseye of 8 in extreme northwest Iowa by the Missouri River.

Obviously, all this will change from run to run. For now, it’s enough to say that there may be a chase opportunity shaping up for Tuesday.

As for Wednesday, well, we’ll see. The 12Z GFS earlier today showed good CAPE moving into the southern Great Lakes, but the surface winds were from the west, suggesting the usual linear junk we’re so used to. We’ve still got a few days, though, and anything can happen in that time.

SBCAPE in excess of 3,000 j/kg with nicely backed surface winds throughout much of region.

SBCAPE in excess of 3,000 j/kg with nicely backed surface winds throughout much of region.

500mb winds with wind barbs.

500mb winds with wind barbs.

MLCINH (shaded) and 700mb temperatures (contours).

MLCINH (shaded) and 700mb temperatures (contours).

APRWX Tornado Index (shaded) and STP (contours). Note exceedingly high APRWX bullseye.

APRWX Tornado Index (shaded) and STP (contours). Note the exceedingly high APRWX bullseye.

July 11, 2009 by
Filed Under: Nature, Outdoors, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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