May 24, 2019

From my morning storm chasing forecast email list:

"Day 1 Today: Our primary target is around the Lubbock area around late afternoon into the evening. A dryline extends down the Panhandle and a weak cold front or left over boundary to the east running northeast. Storms should hopefully kick off a dryline bulge and a thermal axis. Low level lapse rates should be steep here, so hoping for robust low level updrafts and a little better visibility with a higher temp/dew spread and clearer skies. Nice 0-3km CAPE pool down there making this the most favorable spot for tornadoes I'd think. Dryline bulges and conditional plays for supercells and tornadoes also up by Amarillo if the unstable warm sector can lift/recover that far north, and down south by Midland for your more isolated/away from the hordes secondary target.

Sorry to focus so much on Plains/dryline stuff, but that's where I'm most interested because that's where I am currently located. I know folks are in other places.

Secondary targets around the boundary running northeast across Kansas/Missouri/Iowa/Illinois The quick glance I looked at up there, maybe the KC area, and then eastern Iowa around Cedar Rapids, or even east to Rockford, IL. Decent CAPE/shear profiles there, and higher low level instability pockets."

Abbreviated chase log: Brindley and I caught a storm on the Texas Caprock. Approaching from the north we came out of the forward flank core to a whale's mouth gust front. There was lots of surging motion, but also some convergence that got our attention.

The area of convergence created a lowering with some weak rotation. We watched it with anticipation, but it did not progress any further.

We chased gust fronts all the way into downtown Lubbock. A wall cloud report came in over the city, but all we could see were these high based storms that were probably elevated above the boundary layer.