I’ve been kinda meh on the next system expected early next week, and while not as meh, there is still meh there. Several days out still, so plenty of time to change, for better or worse, but I’d say my meh has come down while the odds I head out have gone up; neither huge shifts, but enough where it’s time to mention it. SPC as highlighted the area basically from I-70 south into northern Texas straddling the I-35 corridor. Initially, a lot of my meh came in the form of where this was setting up to be, which was eastern Oklahoma/northeast Texas into Arkansas. Not only was the distance a limited factor for me, but the location, and not to mention the setup as well, which looked instability-starved. But now, a slower trend has emerged, which would give some hope to the westward shift, and perhaps we can overcome some of the instability issues, which still exist in a lot of the modeling. The other limiting factor is I have a hard-need-to-be-here Wednesday morning, so winding up somewhere more than 12 hours one-way home was going to be a non-starter for me. An I-35 corridor chase that puts me in the area of OKC or Wichita by Monday evening is a much more doable task.
I’ll call it 50/50, at least according to my chase outlook. If we keep this general area, that goes a long way to offsetting some of the forecasted meh. Ideally, I would leave my home Sunday to saw off a chunk of the miles, and given my Washington game is the Sunday night game against the Eagles (why they didn’t flex it is beyond me), I would like to be landed by kickoff so I can watch that from the comfort of a hotel somewhere along I-70 or even down towards Wichita if I need to hoof it that far. A northern play makes sense given the development of a surface low, but further north is closer to the cold front, which is slower, may not be the worst thing, but obviously further south will reside the better moisture and instability, so I’m hoping for a northern play, anything north of I-40 and along/west of I-35 is going to go a long way to pushing me out the door.
November has been a good month for tornadoes for me over the years… while not a TON of chase opportunities, I’ve seen 12 tornadoes on five tornado days, four of which were VERY solid chases. In fact, the least impressive of the five was two years ago on what will be the same date this chase could happen on November 2. So we’ll see… we’re in the icing stage of 2026, given I have hit my 500 career tornado goal, and did so very late, so anything between now and the end of the year is just icing to this cake. Certainly plenty of room to slide 2026 up the list, so I will watch the next 36 hours worth of models to see if enough exists in the region I want, and if it does, I stream football games on my way out to Kansas on Sunday!