Oh So Quiet

Sitting tight on vacation (through May 21) as a quiet pattern will continue much of this week, although things could pick up this weekend and early next week across the northern and central Plains. With a fairly strong front (at least for mid May) expected to push into the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, quality boundary layer moisture will be limited into the weekend amidst weak flow beneath upper ridging. However, deterministic runs of the Euro over the past several days have been consistent with a broad upper trough evolving over much of the western states by late weekend. Operational runs of the GFS have been more variable, but GFS ensembles do support a similar evolution this weekend, although more dampened/farther north with the western trough. Irregardless of the details, a few chase opportunities appear likely to develop across the northern and central plains by late week, seemingly most likely Sunday-Tuesday. Unsure whether such would warrant a trip north at this point, but it bears watching.

As an aside, anyone reading this blog is certainly aware of the tragic F5 tornado that struck Greensburg, KS on the evening of May 4th. For GRLevel3 users interested in looking at the radar data, I have the processed archive files (00z-07z) available for download at:
http://www.deepconvection.com/Greensburg/

After downloading and uncompressing the original file, simply drag and drop the individual volume scan files into a running GR3.

Also, Jon Davies has a nice forecast/environment discussion available:
http://members.cox.net/jondavies6/050407greensburg/050407greensburg.htm

Jared