Forecast produced Friday June 14, 2019

Since the last forecast I posted, the GFS got retired and the GFSV3 became the operational GFS.  I don't see much difference in the way of how things on the large scale are handled, so I will take the new GFS at the same value that I took the old one.  I'm doing these forecasts from the 12Z model runs, except the Euro which comes out later so I'm using the 00Z run.

June 17 (84)
NAM: Eastern NM/CO
GFS: Eastern NM/CO
ECMWF: Eastern NM/CO
GDPS: SE CO

June 18 (108)

GFS: Western KS
ECMWF: Eastern MT to the TX panhandle
GDPS: Western OK/SW KS


June 19 (132)
GFS: Central SD/NE
ECMWF: Central Dakotas to central OK
GDPS: KS to southern SD


June 20 (156)
GFS: Eastern KS, maybe?
ECMWF: Southern SD or NE
GDPS: NE KS to SE ND


June 21 (180)
GFS: SW SD to south-central KS
ECMWF: Central NE
GDPS: Southern MN/northern IA


June 22 (204)
GFS: Eastern NE to eastern CO
ECMWF: Southern NE/northern KS or eastern CO
GDPS: Central OK, eastern KS, eastern NE, SE SD


June 23 (228)
GFS: Central NE
ECMWF: NE CO
GDPS: SE KS


June 24 (252)
GFS: KS or eastern CO

What this is telling me, though, is that we will have plenty of storms to see.  Moisture hasn't been a problem at all this year, and this time of year it's unlikely moisture would be a problem.  Aside from some local flooding, that is.  As well, though, the models seem to want to put a good strong belt of 500 mb winds overtop that moisture for most of the week, so the finer details should sort themselves out. But when I'm seeing consistent 40 to 50 knots forecast at 500 mb with instability in place, I'm thinking really good supercells.  The photogenic kind. And as well that tells me there is a good chance we'll be staying out later one night (or more) for lightning photography.

For some context, this time of year you need 25+ knots at 500 mb to see decent storms; the high terrain of Colorado and Wyoming can do some pretty magical things with storm structure with just marginal flow, and it appears the flow will be better than marginal.

The locations I mentioned above are what the different models showed as the *best* areas for that day; quite a few of those days, too, had a lot of good areas.  Driving will be kept to a minimum, as we can only do so much; as such, some days we may not be able to go after the best area simply because of logistics.

The first day will most likely be a travel day, and a long one at that.  If we leave Monday, it looks highly likely we'll be playing in Kansas on Tuesday.  That being the case, I'd want to get into Nebraska somewhere--Kearney, for example.  That's nearly a 12-hour drive, but it would leave us about 4 hours away from the theoretical target area.  that would be ideal logistically, but a bit of a long travel day.

We will be letting you know, likely by tomorrow, if we're leaving for sure on Monday.