forecasting2

Well, since I have a little spare time here, I will post another example of using the Short Fuse Composite to position yourself for severe weather, including tornadoes. The day in question here was April 21 of this year (1999). There was a nice dryline set up from SW Kansas through the western OK to the Childress, TX area. There was excellent speed and directional shear, nice CAPE, and a s/w coming in. SPC had the whole northwestern part of OK and all of southwestern and south central KS under a moderate risk. Large and destructive tornadoes were possible that date.

My target area was just east of the dryline, just to the northeast of a mesolow that had formed near Woodward, OK. As I arrived just east of the Woodward area, it was obvious that the dryline had shifted well east (and not forecast to as pressure falls were occuring in response to the s/w coming in from NM) as I was under SW winds of 25 with a Td of 44°. Time to get data. I stopped and checked out the DDC Short Fuse Composite, which pointed me to an area farther east near Enid. I figured that since I was that far I might as well go farther. Good thing I did. As I arrived to the east of the dryline, the Td shot up to 70° and winds picked up out of the southeast.

Listening to Mr. Roboto's monotone, I heard that there was now "an unbreakable cap in place" and the portions of area had been downgraded to Slight Risk or dropped all together. Based on the Short Fuse, I was not sure I bought that. Within an hour cu, then tcu formed rapidly on the dryline, with the first cb developing and moving northeast rapidly. As soon as the first cb went up, SPC issued a tornado watch for the whole area. Unbreakable cap? In a time span of 90 minutes, the skies went from clear to an F3 tornado that leveled the town of Carrier. Below are the Short Fuse Composites for that time frame.

CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO DISPLAY FULL SIZE

2100 UTC

Original plots by
NWS DDC

2300 UTC

http://www.dodgecity.net/nws/apr2199.html

Note how the cap strength had eroded to 3 and the LI was at -11. Nice southerly flow, good moisture pool in western OK and decent Theta-E ridge just east of the moisture pool. Remember to position yourself downwind in the manner described before, and low and behold, you are there :-)

Interesting, too, that there was another area on the short fuse composite that points to where severe weather would occur. Can you find it??? There were tornadoes reported in BOTH areas that evening.

(Hint: it is the home of the Huskers )

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Special THANKS! to the folks at NWSO, Dodge City, KS, for putting out these products. Check out their Storm Chaser Stuff for additional info on the Short Fuse Composite and more.