Home | Blog Index | Blog Archives | Christianity & Faith Essays | Storm Chasing Essays

Friday, May 22, 2026

Peak tornado season looking grim for storm chasers: Plains forecast update 10, for May 22

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

As we move into the climatological peak of tornado season - late May - things are not looking good for storm chasers virtually anywhere in the central United States. The pattern will be dominated by the core of the primary jet settling in a great distance to the north, much like it does in the summertime, with an Omega-block type pattern with troughs in the far east and far west. If you were able to get out this past weekend and see tornadoes (thankfully I was), count your blessings!

Some ripples in the flow are shown here and there in the Plains, which normally would be doable for storm chasing - but what most models show now is that the other key ingredient - moisture - will be severely lacking. Multiple cold fronts are shown decimating that essential ingredient in virtually the entire Great Plains and Midwest for an extended period.

GFS 500mb forecast for late Friday night

I won't sugar-coat it, the upcoming 7 to 10 day period looks as bad as it gets for chasers, especially now when this is the time most have scheduled non-refundable and/or fixed chase vacations. I don't see any good options for targets, not even Hail-Mary types in the deep south or even Florida for the foreseeable future.

Some severe thunderstorms are shown here and there a state or two from the Gulf when some of that moisture manages to underlay some weak northwest flow, down in Arkansas and even Louisiana. You know it's bad when chasers have to go down there this time of year, and that for what basically amounts to table scraps!

If I was unfortunate enough to have a planned trip right now, I'd consider just canceling and saving whatever money I could for something better later. The season is not over yet, not by a long shot. We still have most of June for things to reset. It's just that right now, there is no sign of that on the horizon.

As we've seen already, models have been doing flips this season on the longer-range patterns. And it's not unheard of for the High Plains to manage some miracle-like landspouts in this type of pattern, but again, even generic thunderstorms look to be sparse east of the Rocky Mountains and north of Interstate 20.

Of course, this means that my Plains trip probabilities in the medium range are going to be as close to zero as they can get. I'll never say 'zero' chance for something more than a week out, because it's the weather we're talking about here. But it's looking safe to say I probably could make an exception to that rule for this one (but I won't).

The following table plots the probabilities* of a Great Plains chase expedition taking place for the date ranges shown:

2026 Plains Chase Expeditions - Probabilities as of May 22*

May 22-28

May 29-June 4

0.5%

*Base/normal-season probability values are shown. Subtract 35 to 45 percentage points for effective copyright infringement imposed probability values.