Yesterday turned out to be a satisfying chase day for TVN live streamer Verne Carlson, who made a relatively short trek from his base in the Denver area into western Nebraska. Maybe you were watching him live? Verne chased the cluster of storms that popped up around the Ogallala area, which were intense enough to prompt tornado warnings and were severe warned for several hours. He came away with a few gustnadoes and some nice structure for his efforts. Also, below are photos from John Hallen from the same cells, showing the debris associated with a gustnado as well as some nice mammatus!

Otherwise, as usual the GFS is hinting at big things for the middle of next week. Yesterday's 12z and 18z run looked like a possible high risk day for the southern Plains, but the next few runs have not shown nearly as much promise. A lot of chasers would actually prefer that the season not heat up until later in May and June anyway, given the greater likelihood for slower storm motions and generally more predictable storm events. This time of the year, there is often great anticipation associated with the massive troughs crashing the Plains nearly every week, but there are usually one or two critical elements that are not quite adequate for a large-scale event to transpire. As we've mentioned in previous entries, available moisture can be a huge question mark early in the season, and that is definitely a big reason why there have been so few storms this year. Later in the Spring and early Summer, the air will eventually become quite saturated ahead of a storm system, and dewpoints can reach the mid 70's or higher. However, the big hurdle during these potential events will usually be warmer temperatures aloft, which can lead to convective inhibition despite the plentiful moisture and high instability. But that's just the nature of things, literally, as there is almost always a proverbial tug-of-war in the atmosphere when it comes to severe storm development, and many times, for a variety of reasons, it's not clear what was really gaining the upper hand until after the event has come and gone. For people who want to become better at forecasting, that's why it is important to go back and evaluate the available data to see why things transpired the way they did (or didn't). Now is a great time to be looking at archived data as we wait for May and June to arrive!