May 18, 2019

From my morning "chasecast" email:

"Day 1 Today: Most interested in the bit of pristine/recovered warm sector in Oklahoma and southern Kansas. HRRR consistently showing a Tail End Charlie in northwest OK off the northeast to southwest line of storms that fires off the left over cold front. NAM hinted at Medicne Lodge maybe a bit west toward Dodge City. It's a conditional sleeper player, but we're departing Nebraska for it. Getting a discrete storms on the top of the higher CAPE gradient over western OK, where the sig tor parameters go bonkers at 0z, could have some tornado potential. Woodward to maybe Alva by 6pm is initiatl target. Love, love the cold air aloft digging into this target atop the trough axis. That makes for super pretty structure, and sometimes some really robust stretching for tornadoes. One of those days where you're geeked to play the 2%

HRRR kind of quiet now on the cold front storms in eastern KS, but if that materializes, surprise spin-ups and non-supercell tornadoes are a possibility.

Not liking Iowa much anymore. Ongoing storms look to persist across open warm sector, storm mode and coverage will be a problem. Warm front is displaced too far to the northeast and too sharp. Highly conditional gamble and probably something embedded if you're chasing up there.

Totally ignoring the big enhanced 10% hatched down in se OK, AR. I simply don't chase there due to the terrain. Looks like a continuation of the morning MCS. Messy supercells in a line with a mix of other storms. Looks ugly despite several tornadoes being possible due to strong shear."

May 18 turned into more of a ferry day than a chase, where we repositioned for what was supposed to be a high risk tornado outbreak setting up in Oklahoma two days later. We made our way from North Platte, Nebraska, south through western Kansas and into northwestern Oklahoma. Storms fired by evening and we watched a few gust fronts, rainbows, and pretty evening convection before we called it. We passed Hank along the way shooting some storm structure before we stopped in Woodward for the night.