Tornadopocalypse?

Justin knows I had to call him out on the use of this term. There are about 14 reasons why, but I won't get into them. My voice would get too reedy.

That is not to say, however, that I don't think Monday will be huge. It will. Storms, if and when they fire (and I think it's more of a case of if, rather than when) will be supercells and if they go before dark tornadoes and very large hail will be likely.

My penchant for storm structure comes into play here, though, and I don't necessarily want the tornadopocalypse--I want to see the storms. I think farther north, near the warm front, there could end up being a lot of convergence and storms just blasting en masse there, all with low LCLs, making for a big mess with a giant wedge in the middle of it.

I like the dryline. The storms in such a setup tend to line up in what is called, in the chasing vernacular, "a string of pearls". Storms form at semi-regular intervals down the dryline until such a location as either capping or shear get to be too much of a problem. So you pick a storm somewhere along it and hope for the best.

Here's why I think all the dryline storms will be major league storms; here is also why I think this will be a difficult chase.



The pluses:

1. Moisture - dewpoints in the mid to upper 60s
   
2. Instability - great lapse rates make for over 4000 J/kg of CAPE
   
3. Shear - forecast soundings indicate nearly 80 knots 0-6 km and over 20 knots 0-1.
   
4. Lift - the dryline
   

So what's the problem? Well, if you look at the forecast sounding, the wind field will be such that storms will likely cook at 40 to 50 knots. Ouch.

Oh, and I wanted to mention that, previous to this one, looking at these forecast soundings in the past, I had never seen supercell potential as 100%. Close, yes, but no Romeo Y Julieta.

Earlier model runs had hinted at a more substantial cap in the area, which had led me to wait a little before writing about it. But this latest run leads me to believe that capping may not be as much of an issue. Of course, subsequent model runs should clarify things.

I pick just north of the prog sounding above I posted, which is Weatherford, OK. Let's call my virtual location Watonga.

So here we go--a major episode that looks to extend at least until mid-week is set to go, all while VORTEX2 is out there. Good luck and stay safe one and all!