Thursday, April 23, 2009

Sat/Sun Chase Forecast & Feels Like Summer

My plan is as follows:
Leave Denver by 5AM on Saturday and reach target area which depending on the models will probably be in a polygon from Liberal, KS to Shamrock, TX to Clinton, OK. It looks like storms will fire ahead of the slowing cold front. Everything points to slow moving supercells with great low-level shear. This could be a hell of a day.

We'll be quartering in Amarillo on Saturday night.

Sunday looks like a TX panhandle dryline day. I'm not too interested in chasing what will probably be an ongoing pileup of convection leftover from the night before. Both the NAM and GFS are showing the dryline firing in the TX panhandle up into Kansas. The NAM keeps the dryline almost along the CO/KS border and initiates cells LATER the further north you go (obviously with heating) ... this could be a great "storm-hopping" trip home on Sunday. I have to be at work on Monday morning at 9AM, so I want to be well on my way home. If the NAM verifies, this should work out perfectly. The GFS is showing the convection further to the east in KS, but still keeping the trip home tolerable. Chances are, however, we will be getting into Denver early on Monday morning.

NAM CAPE forecasts for 6PM MDT SAT and SUN respectively. (0Z SUN, 0Z MON)










FEELS LIKE SUMMER


So, this evening, I met "the girls" (Katherine & Jami, my two old roomies) at Washington Park for a walk. It was a gorgeous day out ... temps were great and we had elevated showers all day long.






Elevated shower moves across the metro ... missed the rainbow by about ten seconds.



The lovely Katherine after the three of us enjoyed some Dairy Queen on South Broadway.



So! I'm not looking for sympathy congrats or anything, but Saturday is my birthday. Honestly, I can't imagine anywhere I'd rather be than under a big storm and if the forecast holds, I'll be right there. I'm VERY excited!!!

Dann.

7 comments:

Jayson Prentice said...

Well here's to your birthday wish for being on a nice big ol' supercell somewhere!

sknr31 said...

that's funny I have the same decaying upper level wispy CU's from the sunset tonight...

Matt Johnson said...

Good Luck this weekend! Should be a good one!!!

Scott Hammel said...

Looks like our forecasts for Sunday are pretty similar. Always like to see that haha! I have a feeling Sundays action area is going to move north and east as we get closer. We'll see. Happy birthday too man! Good luck this weekend!

Dann Cianca said...

Jayson: Thanks! I've never chased on my birthday before, so hopefully it'll bring me some good luck!

Skinner: The clouds were purdy. :)

Matt: Thanks!

Scott: I'm hoping they fire right along the way home. Tornado, core, next storm, tornado, core, next, all the way up to I-70. :)

Pat Boomer said...

Lovely shots Dann, looks like it getting green down there.
Good luck on your chase, hope you make it back before 9am Monday :)
Have a happy birthday out there watchin supercells ya lucky ......

Dann Cianca said...

Thanks Boomer! It's starting! A few of the trees are beginning to bud ... and I noticed some flowers on bushes near my apartment this morning.

As for the chase ... definitely. And we'll be home, I'd imagine around 3-4AM on Monday. (hopefully!)