My work is, at this very moment you are reading this, generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I was forced to shut down the professional side of my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.
I know it's been an uncharacteristically long gap in spring Plains forecast updates since the annual March 1 post, but I have a good reason for that. There hasn't been a lot of time to look at Plains weather when the Midwest has been so active! I'm on the board already with 4 tornadoes in my home state. Those were the earliest in meteorological spring I've seen tornadoes (not counting winter severe weather events) and only the second time I've seen daytime tornadoes in March.
So, on to the upcoming weather! As is often the case with early active severe weather patterns, we'll 'pay for it' with an extended period of downtime afterward. Medium-range models are in decent agreement on two things persisting through at least the next 10 days. One, the upper jet pattern will be characterized by mostly northwest flow over the central and eastern continental US, and two, moisture will have a hard time staying in place north of Interstate 40 as strong cold fronts repeatedly push into the Gulf.
GFS 500mb forecast for March 24
GFS surface temperature forecast for March 24
This pattern favors further cool/cold temperatures across the Great Plains and Midwest, and virtually nonexistent chances for severe storms. Despite that, some pooling of thinned moisture here and there across the Midwest is indicated as ripples in the jet pass through. That may bring us a couple of marginal cold-front generated lightning days, but even those doesn't look all that great.
Furthermore, as it's shown now, the threat of winter is far from over. As you can see by the temperature chart above, there is plenty of cold air hanging out in Canada that could surge south behind any strong system. What we have going for us is the higher sun angle of late March, which will quickly warm any frigid air masses that make it that far. All of this is not unusual or unexpected this time of year, of course. We know spring will win eventually.
In a nutshell, a Great Plains expedition appears very unlikely during the remainder of March.
2026 Plains Chase Expeditions - Probabilities as of March 17
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From Dan: Please Read
To my regular readers, I offer my apologies for this heavy-handed notice. Unfortunately it has become necessary, so please bear with me!
Please don't copy/upload this site's content to social media or other web sites. Those copies have been a critical problem for me, seriously harming this site and my photography/storm chasing operation by diverting traffic, viewers, engagement and income. "Credit" and "exposure" does not benefit this site or my operation, rather they threaten my ability to cover my operating expenses. Please read my full explanation for this notice here.
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