Are the Great Plains About to Open for Business?

ECMF-GFS H5 fcst 0408013Last year’s abnormally balmy March opened for storm chasers with a lion-like roar on the 2nd with a deadly outbreak of tornadoes along the Ohio River southward. But from then on, with the exception of April 13 and 14, the season dwindled into a pathetic, lamb-like bleat.

This March has been the polar opposite, and I do mean polar. Many chasers have been champing at the bit due to a wintry pattern that has simply refused to let go. But that may finally be about to change, and April may be the month when this year’s chase season starts to howl. For the last several days, I’ve been eyeballing a large trough on the GFS that wants to invade the Great Plains around April 8, shuttling in Gulf moisture and also suggesting the possibility of warm-front action farther east on the 9th.

GFS H5 fcst 00z 040913The ECMWF broadly agrees. The first map (click to enlarge), initialized today at 00Z, compares the 168 hour forecasts for GFS and Euro heights for Sunday evening, April 7 (00Z April 8). The second map, from TwisterData, depicts the GFS 24 hours later at 7 p.m. CST.

Maybe not a poster child for negative tilting (though the 6Z run changes that), but it could signal the breaking of the Champagne bottle against the hull of chase season 2013. The details will fill themselves in as the forecast hour narrows down. Right now, this is a hopeful sign for storm chasers. Winter may still have a gasp or two left, but we’ve made it through, and change is on the way.

Prior to that, the models point to a shortwave moving through the upper Midwest next weekend. Will it have sufficient moisture and instability to work with near the warm front? Good question; we’ll find out, assuming subsequent model runs don’t wash it out. So far it has shown up consistently. For those of us who live northeast of Tornado Alley, it’s worth keeping an eye on.

 

April 1, 2013 by
Filed Under: Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather, Weather Maps Tagged With: , , , ,

Last Day of March: A Retrospective on One Really Weird Month

Here on this Saturday afternoon, poised at the tipping point into April, I look back on the past month and think, “What the heck was that?” March 2012 has been the oddest March I can recall, and if it is exiting like a lamb, it is not a very nice lamb. But at least it’s behaving more the way I’d expect it to. The first half of the month took the end of an abnormally warm winter to outlandish extremes, with record-breaking high temperatures across much of the nation. Here in West Michigan, not only did we consistently experience temps in the 70s, but we had a number of 80-degree days, one or two of which climbed perilously close to the 90-degree mark. For a while, it looked like we were emerging from the winter-without-a-winter into the summer-without-a-spring.

It was ridiculous, and to me, alarming. What kind of spring, to say nothing of summer, did such an anomaly presage? Would the nation wind up with another killer heat dome like last year’s, only maybe worse? Would the southern plains bake once again under an intolerable drought?

With the Gulf of Mexico’s moisture conveyor wide open, the lamb-like warmth of early March fostered some particularly leonine severe weather on March 2 in southern Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and other nearby states. It was the most lethal March tornado disaster since the 1966 Candlestick Park tornado claimed 42 lives.

As the warm spell continued, wildflowers bloomed in the woods a month ahead of schedule. Maples exploded into chartreuse and red blossoms, hyacinths decked themselves out in yellow, cherries and other flowering trees put on their finery, and hepaticas, spring beauties, and trout lilies sprinkled the forest floors with color, all weeks ahead of their normal season.

Now here we sit with flowers blooming and trees leafing out, and today’s temperature is forecast to hit the low 50s. Yesterday we almost got snow. The unseasonable warmth left us a week or so ago, and now March is acting like itself. Except, what’s with all these daffodils and pink plum blossoms?

The severe weather also seems to have regressed, which I suppose is just as well. I’m presently eyeballing what looks to be the next major trough, which according to today’s 6z GFS will swing into the plains Friday. At present, Saturday looks to have better potential, but at 180-plus hours out, there’s obviously a whole lot of wait-and-see involved between now and then. The system that is presently working its way through looked similarly promising a week ago, but it rapidly deteriorated into a poster child for why anything beyond three days out is just a prompt, not a forecast.

Anyway, right now, on this last day of March, I’m peering ahead and wondering: next Saturday, April 7? Maybe. Granted, I was entertaining similar speculations last week about tomorrow’s no-show. Still, it’s nice to have hit that time of year when the wildflowers are blooming, the robins are tugging worms out of the turf, and fools like me are once again gazing into the long-range crystal ball and thinking, “Hmmm…”

March 31, 2012 by
Filed Under: Life, Michigan, Nature, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Sandhill Cranes

cranes-and-moon_1
The GFS continues to show hopeless ridging throughout most of October. I hardly pay any attention to the long-range forecast models these days, just mention this as a note of idle interest. A trough does finally seem to shape up around 300 hours out per the 6Z run, and it could make life interesting within reach of Great Lakes storm chasers on the 27th and/or 28th. But I don’t have the heart to wishcast that far out; I just don’t believe it’ll happen..

As for the saxophone, I’m extremely pleased with my personal progress. But while I’ve been practicing a lot, my sessions have involved material I’ve already covered in previous posts, and I’d imagine the results interest me far more than they would you.

Lacking anything of great import to write about concerning either jazz saxophone or storm chasing, my radar is scanning for a topic that’s at least conceivably related to either of those two interests. Yesterday’s earthquake in Norman, Oklahoma, would do well except I wasn’t there. I hear it was a loud one, but I’ll leave the reportage to those who actually experienced the shakeup. As for me, I need something closer to home. Like sandhill cranes.

Here in Michigan, now into November is the time of year when the cranes congregate in great numbers in suitable locations that offer nearby sources of both food and cover. Sometime next month they’ll take off for warmer climes in southeastern Georgia and Florida. Meanwhile, this ridging that has quashed the so-called “second season” for storm chasers has provided glorious weather for the sandhill cranes and sandhill crane watchers. The Baker Sanctuary northeast of Battle Creek and the Phyllis Haehnle Memorial Sanctuary near Jackson are well-known staging areas for massive numbers of the birds. However, I’m fortunate to have a location much closer by where over 100 cranes hang out, foraging in a field across the road from a marsh where they shelter for the evening.

Mom and I went out there Sunday evening. It was a blessing to spend the time with my sweet 85-year-old mother, watching the sandhills feed; listening to their captivating, ratcheting calls; witnessing their sporadic, comical, hopping dances; and waiting for them to take off and fly overhead en-masse into the marsh at sundown. Here are a few photos for you to enjoy.

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October 14, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Michigan, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Farmers’ Almanac, Woolly Bears, and Government Cover-Ups

Given the unreliability of long-range forecast models, there’s a lot of justifiable skepticism in the storm chasing community when someone (like me, for instance) talks about an event that’s 120 or more hours out. Beyond maybe three days, trying to forecast weather events becomes increasingly like reading tea leaves. We watch the ECMWF and GFS for signs of agreement and consistency, and if they start showing up, we cross our fingers, knowing that a lot can happen between now and payday.

So I’m not sure what to think when the revered Farmers’ Alamanac gazes into its crystal ball and issues with serene confidence the following prognostication for the Great Lakes region:

November 2009
1st-3rd. Sunny, with increasing clouds. 4th-7th. Rain spreads in from the west. Turning clear and frosty. 8th-11th. Rapid temperature changes. Storm moves east, with heavy rain or wet snow. Frigid cold air follows. 12th-15th. New storm moves into Great Lakes. Heavy rain and/or wet snow. Then clearing and very cold. 16th-19th. Storm sweeps across the area, followed by very cold air. Fast-moving storm, reaching the region by the 19th. Heavy snow, followed by colder air. 20th-23rd. Cold Canadian front brings rain and thunderstorms for the Great Lakes region. 24th-27th. A wet Thanksgiving.  28th-30th. Few rain or wet snow showers. Turning colder.

December 2009
1st-3rd. Rain and wet snow shift into the Great Lakes, south to Kentucky, followed by clear and cold weather. 4th-7th. Storm Ohio River Basin deposits heavy rain and wet snow. Very cold air follows. 8th-11th. A “winterlude” for Great Lakes and the Ohio River Basin. Temperatures still well below seasonal norms. 12th-15th. Scattered snow showers and flurries. 16th-19th. Considerable cloudiness over most areas, but little precipitation. Nights are seasonably cold, days are mild. 20th-23rd. Rain and/or snow.

Not being a climatologist, I’m unaware of what sophisticated meteorological resources the Farmers’ Almanac may be tapping into. Possibly they’ve been consulting woolly bear caterpillars. According to folklore, you can tell how severe the winter will be by the ratio of brown to black banding on the woolly bears. Plenty of brown means a mild winter; wide black bands with little brown points to a nasty snow season. A few weeks ago, I found an all-black woolly bear. I knew that couldn’t be good.

If only we could get the woolly bears to cooperate when storm chasing season is underway. But the little critters have other things on their minds by then, namely, pupating and becoming Isabella tiger moths. So I guess we’re stuck with the Euro and the GFS. Or sacrificing chickens, though the research supporting the link between chicken sacrifice and improved storm intercepts is slim.

No doubt the government is covering up the information, just like they do everything that’s related to severe weather. They want us to remain ignorant, unsuspecting guinea pigs while the weather gods at Norman conduct their insidious experiments, using their array of antennas and radars to generate monster tornadoes 400 miles away and then guide them unerringly through populated areas. Take the May 13 Kirksville, Missouri, tornado, for instance. That one had Government Issue written all over it. The lack of a single shred of substantiating evidence just goes to show how expert Big Brother is at keeping the truth hidden.*

That’s why you’ll find no NOAA papers correlating tornado outbreaks and chicken sacrifice. Same with woolly bears and long, hard winters–though the Farmers’ Alamanac folks, bless their hearts, have obviously made the connection, and hence, they have the weather for November and December pretty well locked in. I call that kind of forecasting ability reassuring.

As for the rest of us, well, we’ve got the ECMWF, the GFS, and tea leaves. How do you like your tea?

_______

* The following disclaimer is intended only for those who take me seriously: I’M JUST KIDDING! Sad that I’ve even got to say it, but the truth is, some folks out there do in fact believe some damn crazy things about the government’s ability to manipulate the weather. I’m not one of them, and I wouldn’t want to be mistaken for such.

That being said, I would love to see the SPC’s research on chicken sacrifice and tornadogenesis.

October 24, 2009 by
Filed Under: Humor, Life, Nature, Storm Chasing, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,