Monday April 15th looked like a chase day, especially if I chose to head north toward the I-64 corridor. A cold front dropping south across Virginia was to fire severe storms with high bases and a good chance of large hail. A rare elevated mixed layer advected into the Old Dominion from the Ohio valley, assisting this convective setup. Thus, I had mentally marked the day on the calendar for a likely chase outside my usual territory. However, several things then altered my perception of things. First, the mid-day SPC convective update increased the risk to Slight across much of the state which ..read more

Parts of the Old Dominion were just upgraded to an Enhanced Risk by the SPC for this afternoon and evening: Hmmm…. And an MD was issued for much of the state with a Severe TS Watch following: Double hmmm…. And Tuesday now contains a Marginal Risk for my general chase area: Triple hmmm… I had already given some thought to chasing today, and I’ve already picked my initial target and timing for this afternoon. Tuesday’s convection looks like it’ll happen a bit earlier ..read more

Thursday April 11th was one of those “hopeful but it didn’t happen” chase days. I was mostly skeptical of the potential for seeing anything worthwhile, even though I did succumb a bit to overly optimistic forecasts (see yesterday’s blogpost) like this SPC Day 1 convective forecast: The Slight Risk across western Virginia corresponded to a 5+% tornado potential, of which I was highly skeptical. Short range convective allowing models (CAMs) and a widespread rain shield both pointed to very stable air across the Old Dominion, with little instability to accompany the abundant wind shear. Thus I w ..read more

There is more evidence that today – Thursday 4/11 – may hold a late afternoon / early evening chance at a chase. It all depends on whether a forecast late day dry slot will erode the cloud deck enough to pump up instability values to go along with the robust shear. The Nadocast site shows this for tornado probabilities today: Meanwhile this is the SPC’s Day 1 convective outlook, with the Slight Risk outlining the 5+% tornado probabilities: Several numerical model forecasts show enough instability to bring storms into southwest and Southside Virginia around the dinner hour. This is supported ..read more

It’s April. Can I admit that I’m ready for some decent instability and discrete storms to chase here in my region? This is the SPC’s Day 3 convective outlook: Looking more closely at this via a couple of forecast models I don’t see much to entice me to chase Thursday. It’s yet another high shear / low CAPE (hence the HSLC term in the post title) setup. Widespread rain ahead of a cold front currently forecast to cross the Appalachians Thursday night will greatly limit instability. Daytime lapse rates are also very anemic while shear values remain high. Meanwhile, forecast soundings indicate “s ..read more

During one stop in western Pittsylvania county yesterday (Wednesday, April 3rd) I was very close to the intersection of “Da Wedge” with an oncoming convective line. I had noted radar-indicated rotation just to my west: I pointed the chasemobile in that direction to capture the feature on the live-stream. This .gif is a sped up (8x) clip from that camera (ignore the time stamp…it wasn’t updating): The very white feature in the bottom center of the frame seems to be the area of rotation and ends the clip looking a bit barber pole-ish. This next clip (from yesterday’s blogpost) from the time-la ..read more

Today, April 3rd, is the 50th anniversary of the generational Super Outbreak of tornadoes which pummeled the nation. Today’s chase here in Virginia definitely didn’t come close to that event. A stubborn multi-day cold air damming wedge refused to give an inch to the powerful storm system approaching from the west: The Storm Prediction Center was much more optimistic than I was, having published this Day 1 convective outlook: Short range models forecasted storms to fire well ahead of the cold front during the morning hours. Thus I headed down the driveway at 8:30 a.m. to motor east in an atte ..read more

Day 3 of Easter week chasing was a bust…otherwise known as “Da Wedge wins again”. The Franklin county bovine crowd shown above was expecting me to provide something, but I had nothing for them. And today’s overly optimistic SPC outlook had nothing for me. I’d already decided to pass on Ohio, and I wasn’t certain that storms further north in the Shenandoah valley would be worth targeting: Cold air damming wedges here in Virginia are notorious for overstaying their welcome, and today’s proved no exception. Temperatures near the VA/NC border reached the low 80s while locations along the U.S. Ro ..read more

Today – Monday April Fools’ – was supposed to be the “Day before the Day”, with Tuesday looking very juicy for storms. This was the SPC outlook issued this morning: A stubborn stationary front remained draped across Virginia today, and the northwest flow looked like it would bring a mid-afternoon upper air “wrinkle” which would fire storms. Unfortunately, the atmosphere was capped by a dry air level as shown in this morning’s sounding at NWS Blacksburg: It took until the dinner hour for storms to fire over West Virginia along the front and propagate eastward. I headed down the driveway at 6 ..read more

I knew today was a bit of a long shot for chasing unless I was willing to extend my range. But given that (a) it’s Easter Sunday, (b) this was Day 1 of 3 potential consecutive chase days, and (c) I’m not energetic enough to chase lots of miles three days in a row (yes, I’m getting old!). Thus my results were limited while chasers further north nearer the stationary front on this graphic scored some nice storm views: This was the SPC Day 1 outlook, showing the storm trajectory thanks to upper level northwest flow: Leaving home at 1:00 p.m. I stayed ahead of an area of stratiform rain crossing ..read more