Looks like things will kick off for me tomorrow… I sat out yesterday and today, and while I am not formally planning to chase tomorrow as I am playing it as a positioning day, there are some potential storm interactions I could have in far eastern Colorado tomorrow afternoon, so I’m not writing off tomorrow yet, but it’ll likely be a ‘just cause I’m there’ type of thing.
As I eluded to in my previous entry, nothing in the coming days looks ‘HISTORIC’, or end of the world. As is typical with these things, there is a lot of click-bait and crazy eye popping headlines. Sure, it’s going to be active with severe weather possible to likely every day through mid-week (possibly beyond), but right now, I don’t have a day that I would be sounding alarm bells for. If you know me, or have followed me for a while, you know I’m not a hype-man, I’m not going to get all goo-goo over setups days in advanced just to stir up engagement. It’s never been my style. I think I kinda try and stay in my lane, focus on the CHASING aspect, not so much forecast and Meteorologist and stuff. A lot chasers have expanded into forecasts, and warnings on a national level, and some do it very well (coughLuciocough), but so many others, not so much. Me, if you go to my social media, it is VERY chase-focused, and occasionally I will poop out some forecast-type stuff, but it’s all focused on chasing. There are plenty of good places people can go to get good weather information, particularly for their local regions. We got a guy here who lives up the street from me, Kody, who has an EXCELLENT Facebook page with great forecast info for northern Colorado and Idaho, and I advise folks all the time to find a trusted source like that in their local areas as they have good insight with no BS. Me, if you’re following me, you’re following me for chasing, the pictures, and occasionally my 2-cents on the forecast ahead. And yes, I will provide some hyper-local info on pending setups to areas I am tied to (Ohio, southern Illinois, Kansas, and of course, Northern Colorado). Anyway, tangent over…
As for tomorrow, I’m watching two areas… the on-my-way pickoff across eastern Colorado; low potential, probably a low-end hailer near the CO/KS border along I-70. And the more effort-heavy areas across southeast Nebraska/northeast Kansas. Right now, CAMs are not terribly high on that area, and it’s a big investment to make that haul, so I need to see something a bit more promising for me to pull that trigger. I won’t sleep completely on it as these surface low setups, while not terribly optimistic in the models, can be sneaky, and can be good, so it’s not a 100% write-off at this point, but I will need to see something a bit more optimistic before I commit to that. Given my preliminary target for Sunday, my first REAL chase day is gonna be southern Kansas/northern Oklahoma, the southeast Nebraska target would make for an easy get, basically a straight south drop on US-81. So it doesn’t hurt me for the day that counts, so I’ll keep tabs on it through the day and decide if it’s worth a 7am alarm on a Saturday for, or if I just play lazy and try and catch something out on I-70 tomorrow, which also would be an easy get for Sunday.
As for the weekday setups, I think they progressively get more… better(?)… as the week goes on… Tuesday and Wednesday, depending on your model of preference, seem to be the pinnacle of this stint, with solid days surrounding that. How long into next week I am out remains to be seen, but right now, it certainly looks like I’ll be out through Wednesday at least, and we’ll see what persists after that. Again, not going to blow smoke up anyone’s butt about how ‘end of the world’ any of these setups are cause there really isn’t a lot of smoke to blow. All setups have high ceilings, and I could cherry-pick all the good things I want from them and ignore all the negatives to pump it up, but alas, just know if you’re in a risk area this week, that you’re in a risk area this week haha Regardless, I will be out, and I will see where I think the best chase setups will be within those larger setups. I am definitely leaning north on all the days, but we’ll see what shakes out.
Lastly, my new vlog has posted today! Head over to my YouTube channel and you can watch the full Vlog from the April 10, 2005 Cold Core tornado chase in northwest Kansas. This day yielded my first favorite tornado photo, which you can see above! It was a fun chase that began late the night before as me and a friend outran an eastern Colorado blizzard to arrive at a I-70 hotel at 5:30am and slept in sleeping bags on the floor of the hotel room. Hahaha Click here to go watch it! I have my chase log posted here as well, you can also go check that out! The Vlog is posted at the top of the chase log, too! 😀