Storm Highway by Dan Robinson
Weather, photography and the open roadClick for an important message
Storm Highway by Dan RobinsonClick for an important message
Home | Blog Index | Blog Archives | Christianity & Faith Essays | Storm Chasing Essays

                   Saturday, May 9, 2009 - 11:48AM

Plains shutting down for the long term

By DAN ROBINSON
Editor/Photographer
Important Message 30 Years of Storm Chasing & Photography Dan's YouTube Video Channel Dan's RSS/XML feed

This is becoming one of those seasons where I really feel for those who have non-flexible plans for storm chase expeditions right now. Since my last forecast post, the models have come into much better agreement on the lack of a western US troughing pattern for the foreseeable future. There is no sign of a tornado season (southwest flow aloft over the Plains) for as far out as all of the models go. As always, there will be Front Range and needle-in-the-haystack setups for those who are stuck with chase vacations during this period. For me though, those types of setups are generally not worth spending money for a long extended trip. I can get plenty of marginal storms (sometimes better ones) close to home! In a nutshell, the outlook is not good for a second Plains trip happening anytime soon.

There is always hope for a turnaround before the end of the season (remember 2005!), and the models (as we've seen numerous times) can sometimes be wrong. But I think the window for something to happen is getting smaller. Thankfully the models can't see the end of the month yet - which means anything is possible - so there is still hope. At this point though, I'm wiping out the probabilities for the next two weeks while raising the June and 'no trip' percentages.

Based on the current outlook, this probability table charts the chance of the second Plains storm chase expedition starting on a particular date:

2009 Storm Chasing & Photography Expedition #2 - Departure Date Probability as of May 9
May 9-152%
May 16-2210%
May 23-3129%
June 1-1529%
No trip #230%

30 Years of Storm Chasing & Photography
Important Message
Dan's YouTube Video Channel
Dan's RSS/XML feed

GO: Home | Storm Expeditions | Photography | Extreme Weather Library | Stock Footage | Blog

Featured Weather Library Article:

Lightning FAQ
Everything you ever wanted to know about lightning!
More Library Articles

All content © Dan Robinson. All usage requires a paid license - please contact Dan for inquiries.

Web Site Design and Internet Marketing by CIS Internet