April 8, 2020

From my morning chasecast storm chasing email discussion:

"Day 1 Today: Couple of targets to play today, and they're both rather conditional gambles as the overall pattern is not super favorable for a classic tornado chase, but may be interesting nonetheless.

Target 1: Keokuk, IA points west into northern MO and north into eastern IA early to mid afternoon. Going for landspouts here. Low level lapse rates approaching dry adiabatic mean extreme stretching of strong surface vorticity near the cold front. You want to be on the storm at initiation, as it's maturing. You've probably missed the show by the time the severe warning is out and your cell has matured. The cold front may just wind up undercutting everything though, but the HRRR indicates prefrontal initiation under the low where surface temps are hot in northern MO. Surface vorticity is also lower out there too though. This is a conditional gamble on a storm being in the right place at the right time (and you too). Large T/Td spreads and rather light or absent warm sector helicity may preclude a real supercell tornado play here. You're going for *big* hail and towers otherwise. Those temps aloft are cold and the midlevel lapse rates are rocking. Watch out for your glass core punching the mature stuff.

Target 2: Jonesboro, AR to Sikeston, MO evening. If you're going for a supercell tornado, try to catch a Tail End Charlie as the tornado parameters improve by evening where deep layer moisture hasn't been squandered by yesterday's frontal passage and as the low level jet ramps up. Try to catch your storm in the better terrain of the MS floodplain in extreme se MO and extreme e AR. Storm mode may be questionable, but hopefully you've got some discrete options left by 6-7 pm. Storms to the northeast over southern IL will likely be congealing into a solid squall by then and tornadoes in the SPC 5% will be needles in a haystack."

A weak attempt at an RFD clear slot is about all I could pull out of this local chase.

One of those chases where the prettiest moment is back at the house.