WKU Meteorology

After quite a beautiful week, it’s time for all of our weekend plans.

Friday will start off cool with temperatures in the low 60s. If you happen to get cold easily and need a light jacket while heading to that 8am class, you will be able to shed it by mid-morning as temps will start to edge up into the 80s. While temperatures will top out in the upper 80s Friday, it’s the dew point temperatures that will make for an uncomfortable start to the weekend. DPs will be near, if not above, 70 tomorrow, which is fairly oppressive. There is also a very slight chance for a light, passing, shower in the area Friday evening, but nothing that will necessarily ruin any outdoor pans. The warm mid-levels will likely prevent any rain from occurring, but a cold front passing through in the evening hours could be enough to force a few showers.

With the cold front moving through Friday evening/overnight into Saturday, winds will be out of the north bringing in much drier air for Saturday. DPs will be in the low 60s, and temperatures will be a little cooler with a high around 85.

Sunday will be a little warmer than Saturday, but at least it will still be manageable with dew points in the low to mid 60s. Looks like the perfect weather to do some yard work and then head to the pool for a refreshing dip if possible!

Overall, the weekend really couldn’t be much more ideal for this time of year especially for those that have any outdoor activities. If you have the time, take advantage of the warm, weather, clear skies, and low dewpoints Saturday and Sunday especially. A quick look at the beginning of next work week shows temps taking quite the jump into the 90s, so be ready to take it easy with any outdoor sports or activities next week.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed their first week of school! If not hopefully you were able to recuperate over the long weekend.

The big weather event on everyone’s minds right now is hurricane Dorian. Dorian’s maximum winds have backed off bringing the hurricane down to a category 2. Here is a current picture of what the system looks like right now.

Dorian will continue its track up the east coast affecting Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and southeast Virginia.

There are storm surge warnings along the eastern coast coinciding with the flash flood risks. Thankfully we’ll stay outside the risk zone.

There is a cold front that has crossed over the state and is actually sitting on top of Bowling Green right now. That cold front is helping to brings some clouds into the area for this afternoon into this evening. Temperatures will start to go down just slightly.

• SUMMARY:
  • Wednesday:
    • High: 95
    • Low: 62
  • Thursday:
    • High: 90
    • Low: 59
  • Friday:
    • High: 86
    • Low: 60

Stay safe and have a great week everyone!

Hopefully everyone has been enjoying the warm weather and sunshine today, as there is more of that to come this week.

Tonight a high pressure system will continue to move into our region, keeping sky conditions mostly clear overnight with a low around 65°F.

High pressure will remain dominant Tuesday bringing more sunshine to our area, with a high around 90°F. Tuesday night will remain clear with a low around 68°F

It was another early start for the WKU storm chasers as we planned to drive from Salina, KS to Texas. Our target for the day was Gainesville, TX, which is north of Dallas. It was a 6 hour drive, and storms were initiating early in the morning.

We knew this chase day was going to be a bit different, because we will be showing up to our target as storms are already occurring. The Storm Prediction had yet another Convective Outlook across Texas and Oklahoma. We were focused on the Enhanced Risk, a level 3 out of 5 for severe weather.

Atmospheric Set up and Target Decision

This active pattern continued today with ample shear, lifting, instability, and moisture. We have chased every day except the day we drove from Hays, KS to Amarillo, TX to prepare for the High Risk day. While we prefer to chase further west in Texas, specifically the Panhandle, we would not make it there in time for storms. Instead, we chose to go just north of Dallas, and arrive as storms were already going on. This area is challenging though, as there is a lot of traffic and many trees. We decided to go for the area anyway, and made it work out well.

We made a very quick stop for lunch in Moore, OK. We all preordered Jimmy John’s and had them waiting for us when we pulled in the parking lot. It’s tricky eating a tasty sub in the van going down I-35, but we had storms to see.

Chase

Immediately as we arrived in Gainesville, TX, there was already a severe thunderstorms. We found a storm cell we liked on radar, and decided to chase it near Josephine and Nevada, TX.

We tried to find a good area to get better visibility of the storm, and after doing so, we were able to spot a funnel cloud. Can you spot the funnel cloud?

We continued to chase this cell, and eventually saw some ground circulations. These were possibly landspouts, but could have also been very weak tornadoes. We continued to chase, and then ran into more visibility problems.

We continued to chase east of Dallas, near Canton, TX. There was a reported tornado, but we did not get a visual of it. Instead, we begin to see some minor tornado damage, and had to take alternate routes while trying to navigate around the storm. We had to turn around a few times due to road closures.

Now well east of Dallas, we continued southward, chasing storms with decent rotation but impressive lightning. We captured quite a few lightning strikes rather close to the van.

In the picture above, you can see the fireball that the lightning created from contact with the ground.

As you can see from the radar, there were lightning flashes surrounding us. We stayed in the van for safety, but the entire van would shake each time the thunder roared. It was such an amazing experience to see lightning like this.

We ended our day by driving to the hotel in Athens, TX. We decided to celebrate the epic day by going out to the Jalapeño Tree.

We chased a total of 7 different storms in a relatively small area with low visibility. Overall, it was another great chase day. We saw more funnel clouds, ground circulations, and epic lightning. Thanks for stopping by, and make sure to follow @wkustormchase on Twitter for current updates.

Today was one for the books for sure. We woke up in North Platte, Nebraska after a full and exciting day from Day 9. The enhanced risk from yesterday had centralized into a moderate risk for today located over the Iowa, Nebraska, and Missouri borders.

The Set-Up

The route from North Platte to Southern Iowa is a 6-hour drive. The long drive was cutting it close for time of initiation, which made us rethink our initial target. The set-up for today was classic with the warm front and dry line boundaries.

The typical chase would involve chasing the northeast part of the low. We decided to take the risk and chase the southwest part of the low, where the moisture and winds converge. This method is a risk due to the smaller area with all the ingredients, however, if anything were to develop, the cell will be a beautiful, isolated supercell.

The Chase

Around 5 hours of driving, we ended up in the Hays, Kansas area. We stopped in Stockton at Shirley Mae’s Deli for sub sandwiches. After burning some time, we drove around the lovely city of Stockton and ended up in the little town of Walker, Kansas. We parked the van on the side of the road and noticed cumulus clouds started to tower. After some time throwing the football, we saw that 2 landspouts were reported on this storm. We saw the landspouts forming from the towering cloud and piled back up in the van to chase it.

From one pixel to several in a few minutes, this storm was growing fast and strong. We drove closer to the storm and noticed the tornado sirens going off in the town of Walker. By the time we pulled over to watch the storm, the reflectivity started showing widespread rotation. This storm was now a supercell in the making.

The storm started moving away from us, so we got back in the van and chased it. The reflectivity was now showing tight rotation and a “hook” feature on the south-side of the storm which is conducive of tornado circulation.

While chasing, a tornado was reported on the ground. While we were so close to it, we could not see it. The tornado had become rain-wrapped, disguising it with the rest of the storm.

We turned East on a road and notice the power lines down ahead. Multiple power lines were snapped in half from the tornado that had passed minutes prior.

We turned around due to the road closure. The hook feature on radar was now to our backs. We started driving away from the storm with hopes of getting on a new road to catch up to the storm.

One of the students on the storm chase team, Luke Rogers, kept an eye out in the back and saw a beautiful tornado emerge from the rain. He exclaimed about the stove pipe tornado behind us and we stopped the van and all piled out.

We watched the tornado for minutes and soaked it all it. This time was the moment that most of us were waiting for. It was truly a rewarding time for all of us. We saw the tornado rope out and eventually dissipate into a long elephant trunk.

We piled up back in the van to keep up with it, however, the roads made it hard to keeps eyes on it. We eventually decided to head to Salina, Kansas for the night. We had burgers at the hotel and reminisced on the success we had on this trip, especially on Day 10 of chase day.

Another day of storm chase in the books. This day was quite tricky, however, we managed to make the best of it.

The Set-Up

Our day, once again, started out in Amarillo, Texas. The surface observations were showing a stationary front extending from the northeast corner of the Texas panhandle going northeast into central Kansas. The winds throughout Texas were warm and strong from the South and the moisture was high, as well. The 12 Z run for the High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model was showing a dry line strengthening and propagating right over the New Mexico-Texas state border any where from 19-20 Z (2 – 3 pm CDT). Along with the dry line, the intersection of the stationary front and the dry line was another point of interest when considering our target for the day.

The Chase

The group packed up and left soon after the forecast discussion. In the van, we decided to head north toward Dumas, Texas. The storms were just beginning to develop in the far west Texas panhandle, which gave us enough time to visit Los Potrillos Mexican Restaurant. The food was great and the service was impeccable.

We also met Corrina; she remembered the storm chase group from 2017.

After lunch, we went drove out of the lovely city of Dumas and watched a storm roll in. The lightning was the best part about this storm.

The storm started weakening and another storm in far southeast Colorado caught our eye. We merged onto the highway and headed for the Campo, Colorado supercell. The visibility was improving tremendously, which lightened our spirits for this chase day. In fact, the air was so clear, we could see the storm while we were 50 miles away.

We met the Campo storm near Manter, Kansas. The storm had widespread rotation and looked like it could tighten up at any moment. Our route around the storm consisted of dirt roads that occasionally looked like loose, sandy roads. We maneuvered with the storm and stopped just east of it to watch what it would do. The next radar scan came in, and the rotation was tightening up but the hail was also moving toward us. We started driving around the storm away from the hail and kept our eye on the rotation. A nice funnel formed for seconds and nearly made it half-way to the horizon.

We watched the storm move away and decided to head for our hotel in Garden City, Kansas. We arrived to the hotel relatively early and headed for a nice relaxing dinner at Old Chicago.

Today was a calmer day for the storm chase group; it was pretty light in travel for us. Also, we spotted a rainbow to top Day 7 of chase off.

Our morning began with a forecast discussion in Shamrock, TX. We knew that our travel distance wouldn’t be as long, so we were able to have a relaxed morning.

Atmospheric Setup

When we went to bed on Thursday night the SPC had a slight risk area extending from Texas to the Great Lakes. During our forecast discussion on Friday morning, our main focus was on the dry line that extended southwest to northeast across the south central part of the panhandle. An upper level low was located over Montana and North Dakota, which was a bit of a change from the atmospheric setup that we had been dealing with earlier in the week. That upper low had continuously gyrated over the western US but has now moved on and is making way for the next wave to come through. The 500mb winds had backed off quite a bit but a large ridge over the Gulf states coupled with the negatively tilted trough over the northern US sandwiched the pressure gradient and caused a jet streak over the central Plains.

At the end of our forecast discussion, we decided that the best environment would be on the south side of the dry line. We felt that this area was where moisture convergence, CAPE, and low level lapse rates were the most conducive for severe storms. Our goal was to stay along that boundary and follow any storms that fired along it. Later in the afternoon the SPC upgraded an area within the south central part of the Texas panhandle to an enhanced risk.

The Chase

We began our drive from Shamrock, TX and started heading toward Lubbock, TX. Visibility was slightly better as we chased our first storm between Floydada and Crosbyton, TX. This storm had visible rotation and created the most beautiful sight as we drove past a canyon and could see the base of it.

We moved southeast and positioned ourselves to the west of Dickens, TX. We encountered quite a bit of hail from this storm and then moved back into Crosbyton, TX to wait for the next cell to move through. While in Crosbyton, we encountered major flooding. The roads were covered, ditches were turned into moving waterways, and the fields had standing water with ripples going across them. Grass was not visible on much of the land and runoff soil led the water that was coming off the fields and onto the road. We concluded our chase day in Crosbyton and decided to head toward Amarillo for the night in order to be closer to our target for Saturday’s chase.

Conclusion of the Day

On our drive back to Amarillo at the end of the day, we got to see beautiful mammatus clouds in Plainview, TX.

We checked into our hotel in Amarillo and then walked across the parking lot to have dinner at Bubba’s 33. While waiting for our table we got to watch a beautiful sunset. As usual, dinner was filled with good food, good company, and plenty of laughs. Check back tomorrow for another update. Thanks for following along with us!

We started our Thursday morning by packing up and leaving Claremore, OK at 8 AM. We also parted ways with David Oliver ( Director of Environmental Health and Safety at WKU) and Dr. Tim Caboni (WKU President). Over the course of 3 days, we traveled just over 1500 miles with the President across Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

We had a general idea that storms were going to be in the Panhandle of Texas, but this area is much bigger than most people think. After conducting a forecast discussion in the van, it was determined that our target would be Pampa, Texas.

Atmospheric Setup

The Panhandle of Texas was expected to be an area of severe weather. The upper level jet streak has backed off a little bit, but still brings upper level divergence/low level convergence to that area. A stationary front was draped west to east across the northern portion of the Texas Panhandle, and the north to south dry line was situated directly over the Texas/New Mexico border. The Panhandle would have plenty of instability, wind shear, and moisture, as the strong low level jet helped pull in deep moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. These ingredients, converging on the boundaries, helped initiate storms west and north of Amarillo. Pampa, TX was our target because we felt that storms would initiate west of Amarillo, and move into a better environment just east where they could develop into supercells. While we were driving to our target, the Storm Prediction Center upgraded the Day 1 Convective Outlook to a Moderate Risk (Level 4 of 5) for the area just east of Amarillo, which was in perfect agreement with our target.

We stopped for lunch in Shamrock, TX, and ate at the Roost, a popular local restaurant. We continued to our target, and then waited for storms to initiate.

Chase

Our first storm of the day was just to the north of Pampa, TX. We chased this unorganized supercell for quite some time. Fortunately, flood roads were not a problem today, and the chaser convergence was a little more spread out over the Panhandle. We continued to chase this storm as it was southeast of Spearman, Texas. We were able to take a sturdy dirt road, and drove within a few miles of the cell.

This location brought a nice view of the approaching storm, as seen below.

We continued to chase the storm northward all the way up to Perryton, TX. This is just south of the TX/OK border. Again, this cell produced very ominous clouds, and we sat and watched.

We had trouble with visibilities again. Wall clouds and possible tornadoes were rain wrapped, and when blocked by a curtain of rain, makes it very difficult to see anything. We had several velocity couplets that suggested a possible tornado, but we could not see it. But, overall, it was still a great chase day. The forecast verified that our target would be the location of severe storms. We saw some ominous clouds, ran along side tornado-warned storms, and saw a lot of incredible lightning.

End of the Day

We finished chasing near Canadian, TX, and decided to get a late dinner at the Stumblin’ Goat. We then drove south to Shamrock to spend the night.

Thanks for following along on our storm chase trip. Make sure to follow @wkustormchase on Twitter for current updates.