WKU Meteorology

Good morning, readers!

Introduction

For those who do not know me, I am Mason Quiram and I am new to the blog. I am so excited to be here to talk weather with you all! I have spent a great portion of my life reading weather blogs just like this one, and it is crazy to be on the contributing end now!

Forecast

For today, you can expect a few scattered showers early this afternoon, otherwise comfortably warm with temperatures in the lower 80’s. Tonight, skies clear and temperatures drop as a result. Walking out the door tomorrow could be a cool one, with early morning temperatures in the mid to upper 50’s. Enjoy the free air conditioning!

Weather Fact!

Did you know?: On this day in 2004, former U.S. President George W. Bush became the first American President to visit the National Hurricane Center in Miami, FL. (NWS)

Have a great day everyone!

Good morning, everyone!

Today, our region will be in between two frontal boundaries, thus maintaining high pressure. In other words, conditions will be comfortable, with abundant sunshine and calm winds. Humidity will be rather low, but still present, so expect the air to feel somewhat sticky, but not oppressive. Moreover, temperatures will peak in the lower 80’s this afternoon and drop to the lower 60’s by nightfall. As always, if you plan to spend time outdoors, make sure to be prepared to both stay cool and protected from ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

That’s all for today! Have a wonderful start to the work week!

Good afternoon, readers! In today’s post, we will take a look at what to expect for tomorrow, to which will be the start of a long weekend for most of you!

Tomorrow, we will have high pressure in our region of the country, promoting plentiful sunshine and fair weather. However, it may feel rather sticky out as dew points creep up into the lower 60’s by the afternoon. As far as temperatures go, values will peak in the lower 80’s by the afternoon and drop to the lower 60’s by nightfall.

Our only concern will be with the ultraviolet (UV) index, as it is predicted to reach very high values. As always, make sure to have sunblock (SPF 15+), protective clothing and accessories, and a bottle of water on hand if you plan to spend time outdoors.

That’s all for today! We hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Good afternoon! We hope that you are having a wonderful week so far!

On Sunday, Ida made landfall as a Category 4 Hurricane, plaguing Louisiana with flooding and power outages. Incredibly, Ida made landfall on the same day that Hurricane Katrina did back in 2005. Ida reached sustained winds up to 150 miles per hour, making it just shy of reaching Category 5 status. So far, there have been five deaths reported in association with this storm.

For our county, rainfall totals reached up to 2.3 inches on Tuesday alone. That is incredible! Did you see the flooding on campus? I sure did!

Have a great rest of your week!

This is the final day of our storm chase trip for 2021. We started in Lubbock, TX this morning. This would be our last forecast discussion of the trip. We began the discussion at 10:30 that morning with two possible targets available. We had two possible targets again today, but had to commit to one since they were pretty far apart from each other. The first is in south eastern New Mexico, and the second target is near Midland, Texas.

The Atmospheric Setup

The ingredients for the atmospheric setup today was not entirely spatially coherent. It was difficult to pick a target because of this fact. The upper-level 500mb support was weak in most areas of the south central US, but it was sufficient for severe weather after 18Z, only producing winds at around 30 knots. The available CAPE and moisture in the region were not problematic, but there was a significant lack of wind shear in the lowest 1km, and the method of initiation was different for both targets. In New Mexico a dry line would be the main forcing mechanism, but storm motion suggested that storms would move with the dryline and become linear rather than move off the line. The second target near Midland, Texas had a zone of weak surface wind convergence, which suggested a good boundary for storms to track along with areas of localized vorticity. In the end we chose to chase the Midland, Texas target in hopes for more discrete super cell structure.

The Chase

We did not have a long drive today. Our target area was only 2 hours away and once we got there we had some time to play with. We ended up in a park south of Midland, and we spent some time throwing a football. We watched growing cumulus clouds for a good portion of the afternoon, and by 5:30 we were hitting the road to chase storms. A land spout was spotted south east of Monahans, Texas. This land spout was on the ground for over 5 minutes and was very well defined. This was occurring as storm cells merged into a single storm.

Once the land spout was over we dropped south to observe a developing super cell to the north west. We stopped at the end of a dirt road to view a spectacular supercell structure. We watched two very high based low precipitation super cells pass over us. It created an amazing view and we stayed there until there was no light left to view the storms. Once our chase day came to an end we headed back to Monahans, Texas. The trip home now begins and we will be back in Bowling Green by Sunday night.

We woke up in McPherson, KS after a long day of chasing. On this day we had a forecast discussion in the van after we looked around at some damage from strong winds, hail and flooding from the night before. There were two possible targets for the day: eastern Oklahoma or the Texas Panhandle.

The Atmospheric Setup

The upper level support is most present over the east-central Texas Panhandle and into central and eastern Oklahoma, but there is a large area of sufficient upper level support. The theta-e advection is more sufficient in eastern Oklahoma yet there are still some larger values into the Texas Panhandle. The theta-e values within the target areas are adequate for providing moisture and surface lifting. The CAPE is also very sufficient through the target areas with some CIN being present in the southern Texas Panhandle which could limit some convection in that area.

Choosing a Target

The target areas were very similar in their atmospheric setups. The soundings and hodographs looked better in Oklahoma, but the capping in Texas would have more potential for discrete supercells instead of the linear storm mode expected in Oklahoma. The next chase day would most likely be in western Texas based on the guidance from the morning model runs. Taking all of this into consideration as well as road networks and terrain, we decided to target the southeastern Texas Panhandle near Paducah.

The Chase

We had a long drive to get in position for the day so we opted for a quick subway lunch in the car. Once we were in position we saw some storms trying to form with some skinny updrafts but nothing was able to intensify enough to become a supercell.

Near the end of the day we found a storm to watch while the sun was setting. There were many photo opportunities of the storm structure and plenty of flies to go around.

After a long day of driving we arrived in Lubbock, TX and ate at Triple J Chophouse & Brew Co. We then headed to the hotel to prepare for our last day of chasing!

Day 10 of the 2021 WKU Storm Chase was nothing short of exciting to say the least! We had a
pretty solid forecast and not very far to travel from Sterling, CO.

The Atmospheric Setup

We started by looking at the 500 mb winds to gauge our upper level support. Wind speeds of at least 30 kts were found over Nebraska and Kansas with pockets of at least 40 kts in Nebraska. As we looked through the day into our target time of 21Z – 00Z, we saw an axis of 60° dewpoints advect into southern and western Nebraska, and 70° dewpoints advect into southeastern Kansas.

A similar pattern was found on the surface Theta-E map. This told us moisture wouldn’t be a problem! Plus, moisture can also serve as a source of lift at the surface. Speaking of which, we had a few features boundary features that would help to provide lift. The surface map showed a stationary boundary over central Kansas, a cold front drifting through Nebraska, and a dryline along the Texas-New Mexico border.

CAPE was also sufficient across the most northeast corner of Colorado (where we were) into southern and western Nebraska and across the majority of Kansas, with values upwards of 4500 J/kg in western Kansas. Comparing convection allowing models (CAM’s), there was much disagreement between timing of initiation, storm mode (cells versus a line), and where things would first initiate. This made a target location tough, but we agreed that Western Kansas had the best overall ingredients, so that’s where we headed.

The Chase

We set off from our home of Sterling, CO and headed to Goodland, KS, an about 160 mile, 2.5 hour drive. We left around 11 AM MT, and around 1 PM MT in Goodland, KS we made an extremely quick Subway stop for lunch, because storms were already initiating along a moisture boundary near Hays, KS! We raced to intercept it, all while storms were beginning to fire all around it. When we finally were in striking distance, we caught a glimpse of a skinny tornado just before it disappeared behind a new cell. Tornado #1 of the day!

Radar was showing this cell develop cuplet after cuplet, indicating that the storm was constantly rotating and redeveloping, even with other cells developing all around it. We followed it along and made some stops along the way to take some pretty picturesque photos! At one stop, radar velocity showed a tightening cuplet, and right before our eyes, we watched a skinny funnel develop, barely touch the ground, and then dissipate. (Almost) tornado #2 of the day!

After leaving to get ahead of the storm once again, we got some good visibility and were able to see some textbook supercell structure!

We spent all of our chase riding along this cell all the way to near McPherson, KS where it began to “gust out” around 8 PM CT. We decided to just stay in McPherson for the night and made it to town just before some heavy rain and hail passed just to the south of the hotel. While we didn’t experience much hail, the city of Hays, KS saw some hail around 2″ in size!

After a long chase day, we were happy to get back to the hotel. We were ready to get some rest and get ready for another big chase day the next day!

A lack of upper level support left us without a target, so we used the day to travel in preparation for tomorrow. We woke up in Liberal, KS and headed for what is quickly becoming a new home in Sterling, CO. Along the way we stopped at Mount Sunflower, the highest point in Kansas!

We continued on stopping in Garden City to eat a Subway lunch. When we reached Liberal a few hours later we dropped our bags off at the hotel before heading to the Parts and Labor Brewing Company for dinner. Once again service was as wonderful as the food! We finished the night relaxing in the hotel’s hot tub and swimming pool.

Today had a very similar set up to yesterday. It featured a NE oriented boundary draped across northeast CO. There is racing Northerly flow at 500mb showing up on the models that could potentially throw the storms over the boundary into the cold air (again like yesterday). However, if a storm can latch onto and ride the boundary, well get a great storm. Holding position at our hotel in Sterling. We stopped for lunch at the same Mexican restaurant ate at in 2019 for the Imperial, NE mothership. Right after we left, a North moving supercell became tornadic on the NW quadrant of the storm near Brush, CO.

We couldn’t make it in time due to weird transient storm motions (NW and then SE side would flip back and fourth on which would rotate. It eventually crossed over into the cold sector so it no longer had a good energy source. We bailed South to Limon to get on a tornado producing storm in a more linear type mode coming due North. Made it in time to see some lowering/a wall cloud along with some dust swirls on the ground. The storm featured outflow turning to inflow and back. After we left the storm, we had dinner and spent the night in Sidney, NE.

Yesterday, we woke up in Colby, Kansas after a long day of chasing. Luckily we didn’t have to drive too far to get to our target.

The Setup

Yesterday, there was a upper level low pressure system in southwestern Canada with a positively tilted trough axis just west of the four corners region. The 500 mb jet streak was over the northwestern corner of Kansas, Nebraska, and up through the Dakotas. There was a surface low in the southeastern corner of Colorado with a stationary front draping across the northwestern corner of Kansas. This stationary front was the main forcer for the day. High amounts of moisture and CAPE advected into the northwestern corner of Kansas. Since the lift, moisture, instability, and shear were present in western Kansas, that was our target region.

The Chase

We left Colby, Kansas at 11:30 to get lunch at Jimmy Johns. We then headed south towards Leoti, Kansas. Storms started initiating around 1 pm around Tribune, Kansas.

This storm developed into a supercell and became severe and tornado warned multiple times in its lifespan and stayed nearly stationary.

We chased this storm until 5:30 pm then went to go chase another developing supercell near Deerfield, Kansas. This supercell also was severe and tornado warned in its lifetime.

This supercell was very gorgeous and moved slowly to the southeast. We chased this storm until the sun set and watched some lightning as we drove to our hotel in Liberal, Kansas.