Thursday, April 29, 2010

Friday in Iooooowaaaaaa.

I need to just move to SE Iowa or NE Missouri this year.

Definite improvement on this mornings runs. My biggest concern is actually storm motion. These cells could be moving upwards of 50 mph, so if the storm of the day ends up over an area of rugged terrain in northern MO or SE Iowa you're hosed. Pretty broad target right now, as anywhere along I-35 from Des Moines to northern Missouri stands a chance at seeing a line of supercells develop. Right now, my slightly less broad target region is right around Ottumwa still, Ottumwa to Iowa City to Waterloo maybe. It's hard to nail down a more specific region with such fast storm motions as the storms may enter and leave my triangle within an hour of their lifespan. I'll probably start the day around Iowa City, simply to be far enough ahead of the boundary that initiating storm do not quickly pass me up before they organize. There should be a few tornado reports between highway 34 and highway 20 in eastern Iowa. There could be isolated supercells down into Missouri, but right now I think the highest concentration is going to be in eastern central/eastern Iowa.

Morning debris should erode by late morning, allowing for sufficient destabilization by mid-afternoon for explosive development along the front right along Interstate 35 from around Des Moines south into far northern Missouri. These storms should then race NE into my target triangle by early evening, likely producing a couple tornadoes along the way. 0-1 km helicity values could exceed 350-400 m2/s2, so given sufficient destabilization I wouldn't be shocked to see a more significant tornado in SE Iowa right around Ottumwa, and simply owing to the fast motions, potentially a couple decent tornado tracks.

So anyway, fairly broad potential area for svr and tornadoes across all of eastern Iowa and northern Missouri, but I'll favor SE Iowa right now for a couple good tornadoes. Storm motions are going to be the big kicker on what could otherwise be a pretty fun chase. Speckled tornado reports are a pretty good bet in my opinion, but my bet is a lot of chasers come out of this one pissed off and bummed out.

Late edit as I forgot to add I spent last evening at the Rochelle Railroad Park with Gilbert Sebenste. He decided he wanted to show me a few of the more fun places to photograph in the area and was heading out that way yesterday evening so I tagged along.



No comments: