We're away tomorrow!

So tomorrow CStam and I will be jumping in the car and meeting up with Kyle, Neil and Justin in Omaha. They're flying in there. On the way, it looks like we may have some chasing to do--something that'll perhaps mess up our picking them up at the airport. Anyhow. The setup isn't perfect, at least in places we have a realistic shot at chasing, as the flow is a little odd--mostly meridional. That being said, I caught 4 tornadoes one day in 2005 in southern Saskatchewan in a meridional flow. Here are the forecast parameters. I've chosen 21Z, as it appears storms could go by then. Moisture: 850 mb dewpoints above 12°C and surface dewpoints above 18°C are forecast by the model. I believe this, as there are currently 16 dews in place in Omaha, and upstream, in eastern Oklahoma, they're well into the 20s.





Instability: this is perhaps the ingredient about which I have the most concern. Because this system is very dynamically strong, there may be a lot of cloud in place all day, limiting the amount of sun that can hit the ground and warm the air.

 

Lift: There's tons available. Such a strong system tends to have air rising all over the place. To boot, though, it looks like Omaha will be in the left exit of the 500 mb jet--a favoured area for enhanced lift. Shear: Should be good, at least in a deep-layer sense. The 500 mb winds near 50 knots should ensure that. However, the directional shear isn't ideal, but not horrible--the storm motion should be eastward, and the updraft evacuation should make all the rain and hail and such move away from the inflow region--to the north, mostly.

 

So we'll see. I suspect we'll get some good storms, and if we can make it a bit farther south, things only improve from there. Here's a forecast sounding and the forecast storm motion, always a consideration when chasing.

 

As a bonus, I thought I'd add a forecast sounding and hodograph for near Oklahoma City on Monday. If this comes true, a) there will be a ton of chasers out there and b) there will be crazy storms in the area.