Down Days

“Down days”. The bane of every chaser’s existence during the month of May in the southern Great Plains. And this feeling is intensified if you only have six days out of the year when you can chase...like me.

After a captivating experience last Thursday in eastern Kansas, the last three days have largely been devoid of thrills and chills. Except for when I was eating BBQ yesterday. That’s always good for something.

After the cold front blew through the plains Thursday night and Friday morning (and took along with it spring, apparently), no action was possible for several days until a more favorable airmass settled into place. Reed Timmer and Chris Chittick, the big cheeses from our tour group whom we’ve yet to meet, decided to chase in Indiana and Ohio Friday, only coming away with video of a wall cloud...and a few MORE minutes of fame on another Weather Channel interview.

Meanwhile, clearly in no hurry, we meandered back to Norman, Oklahoma, on Friday night in time to induce a food coma at the Olive Garden. (We’ve been eating quite well, in case you haven’t picked up on that. What else do you do in Oklahoma when it’s cold and there’s not a cloud in the sky?)

Our guide, a really cool guy named Dave Holder (who’s taking his last undergrad final tomorrow -- good luck, buddy), was nice enough to take us on a tour of the National Weather Center just off the campus of the University of Oklahoma on Saturday. Dave even agreed to pose with me in front of the national Storm Prediction Center, where all those severe watches anywhere in the country are issued:


Then today, a few cells popped up this afternoon in southwestern Oklahoma, so we decided to brush up once more on our photography (and car-sitting) skills prior to a big chase tomorrow. This is about as ominous as it got:


Speaking of ominous, however, the aforementioned Storm Prediction Center is forecasting big things for tomorrow. Even as early as last Wednesday, big things have been predicted for tomorrow afternoon, so it’s nice to see that none of that has lost any steam. The official wording:

SUPERCELLS WITH STRONG TORNADOES AND VERY LARGE HAIL ARE EXPECTED MONDAY LATE AFTERNOON AND EVENING ACROSS PARTS OF OK/KS INTO SOUTHWEST MO


Why, you ask? Warmth and moisture flowing up from the gulf tonight and tomorrow and a new system flying eastward from the Pacific will form a dryline in western Oklahoma that will march eastward tomorrow afternoon. Combine that with sufficient wind sheer and atmospheric instability, and you have what you need for rotating supercells.

The ingredients are in place; all I need now is a little luck, and 24 hours from now I will have seen a tornado. This is precisely why I'm wearing a t-shirt with a four-leaf clover on it tomorrow. Couldn't hurt...

All of this couldn’t have come at a better time. Morale has been slipping among us guest chasers, and we’ve gotten pretty anxious after three days of doing nothing truly meaningful. Why do you think I’ve written TWO blog entries today?

This all has been an incredibly educational experience...it's just been lacking in the action department. All of that will change tomorrow.

P.S. I want this: