TornadoVideos.net

Posted At: April 14, 2006 @ 6:01 PM

Posted By: Reed Timmer

The ingredients appear to be coming together tomorrow (Saturday, April 15) for a significant severe weather outbreak over eastern NE, northeast KS, southwest IA, and northwest MO, including the threat for large, violent tornadoes. TV.net stormchasers Reed Timmer, Joel Taylor, and Dean Schoeneck will be targeting southeast to east-central NE based on the 12Z and 18Z NAM and GFS runs today, accompanied by their friends from the UK, Sarah Norris and Ben. The diehard UK stormchaser Martin Lawrence will once again accompany us, despite our 9 stormchasing busts in a row. Surprisingly, his faith in us catching him a tornado remains intact! - read complete story.....

Posted At: April 6, 2006 @ 6:07 PM

Posted By: Reed Timmer

TV.net stormchasers Reed Timmer and Joel Taylor, along with Martin Lawrence and Matt Chatelain are currently (10:30am) in Marysville, KS awaiting convective initation and analyzing the morning model data. The forecast ETA and RUC soundings are strongly favoring southeast NE given the more southeasterly 1 km flow and enhanced streamwise vorticity. I (Reed) believe that a region from Topeka to Kansas City is too far south for a maximum potential of large tornadoes, given that the storm motion vector is nearly parallel with the 0-1 shear vector, thus minimizing the streamwise vorticity unless a northeasterly supercell occurs. We are hoping for initiation in in the northern few tiers of counties in KS with tornadogenesis likely near the NE border. This event looks like an extremely dangerous situation for extreme NE KS and SE NE. The forecast hodographs for Omaha, NE (left) and Topeka, KS (right) are shown below. - read complete story.....

Posted At: April 1, 2006 @ 3:12 PM

Posted By: Reed Timmer

A very dangerous late afternoon and evening could be in store for western OK, the extreme eastern TX Panhandle, and southwest KS tomorrow, April 1, 2006. A classic springtime warm front/dryline setup will be established on Saturday, with the late afternoon/evening thermodynamic and kinematic profiles strongly supporting supercells with potentially long-track, violent tornadoes over the above areas. TV.net stormchasers Joel Taylor, Dean Schoeneck, and I (Reed Timmer) plan on departing from Norman at around 9 am, and will stop at Joel's parent's house in Elk City, OK for data. Right now, we believe the best area for large tornadoes is southwest OK and the extreme southeast TX Panhandle during the late afternoon and evening, especially after 2300 UTC. The ETA and GFS models appear to have the 0-1 helicity, 900 mb flow, and CAPE maximized in this region, with locally backed surface winds enhancing the low-level shear. Saturday is a classic case of "00-03Z magic",with a strong low-level jet developing around and after 00Z as the low-level atmosphere begins to decouple. During these events, supercells often develop in the mid to late-afternoon, and fail to produce tornadoes during the first few hours of their life-cycle. However, as the low-level jet commences and if discrete supercells can remain intact, all hell can break loose, and a supercell can become a tornado-producing machine in a matter of minutes (Example: May 12, 2004 in SW KS). As can be seen in the figure below of ETA-forecast 850 mb flow over western OK on April 1, 2006 at 00Z (left) and 03Z (right), the magnitude of the 850 mb flow increases from around 30 kts at 00Z to 45 knots at 03Z, especially over southwest OK, hence our target selection. The 0-1 km helicity increases due to the low-level jet during this time-frame, and the backed surface winds in SW OK further enhances this vital parameter. - read complete story.....