Last B-U-S-T of the season(?)

Despite the obvious potential for severity absolutely nothing happened today. My son and I headed out at 1:30 p.m. to a local intercept site that has both good sightlines and a handy road system to meet some incoming showers. The coastal "front", which divided maritime air with dewpoints into the 60's from the cold air damming wedge along the mountains, had infiltrated our area and was just to our west. We had hopes it would provide enough airmass contrast and low-level wind shear coupled with the gusty southeasterly winds to produce rotational couplets, but nothing more than rainshowers passed through. I just checked the NWS Sterling website for local storm reports and found no entries at all for today. I guess this tops off the unfruitful 2007 chase season in a fitting way.

Aha!!!!!

From today's SPC Day 2 Outlook:  "GREATEST POTENTIAL FOR
BOUNDARY LAYER MODIFICATION/COUPLING WILL EXIST EAST OF THE
APPALACHIANS WHERE DEVELOPMENT OF A NARROW COLD FRONTAL
RAIN BAND APPEARS LIKELY DURING THE AFTERNOON. KINEMATICS
AS CURRENTLY FORECAST APPEAR MORE THAN SUFFICIENT FOR
CONVECTIVE DAMAGING WINDS TO SPREAD EAST THROUGH EARLY
EVENING GIVEN FORECAST STORM MOTION OF 50-60KT...AND MEAN
WIND IN EXCESS OF 70KT. A BRIEF/ISOLATED TORNADO CANNOT BE
COMPLETELY RULED OUT GIVEN INTENSE EFFECTIVE SRH IN EXCESS
OF 500 M2/S2 OVER SOME PARTS OF THE DELMARVA/SERN PA AREA
THROUGH EARLY EVENING."

Maybe I need to hold off on completing my 2007 chase
narrative and go dust off the chase gear!!  It also
sounds like I need to be prepared for a good intercept
position and then an impossible tail chase given the
storm motions.

Winter Thunderstorms?

"STRONG THUNDERSTORMS ARE POSSIBLE SUNDAY AFTERNOON AND EARLY EVENING": from Sterling's Hazardous Weather Outlook this morning. That, coupled with a peek at the forecast models in which at least one of them is predicting CAPE values of up 250 just south and east of us (e.g. within range) , leads to a bit of "hmmmmmm......." about Sunday afternoon, Dec. 23rd, which is the second day of astronomical winter. The models also predict strong winds aloft, dewpoints near 60 degrees, and very little cap; these factors plus an approaching cold front might lead a storm chaser to ponder the chase potential for Sunday. I'll have to monitor the situation as it develops, especially since the SPC didn't exhibit any excitement in its Day 3 convective outlook this morning. But still...

Pre-Christmas longings

It's the time of year for peace on earth and goodwill toward men, and I am sitting here wishing for convective mayhem. That's likely due to the fact that I've been writing up my 2007 chase season account during the last couple of weeks, and the memories have been stirred up big time. I suppose that's a good SDS indicator...and a perfectly good reason for planning a chase trip to the Plains this coming spring. Maybe the week of 17-26 April? Stay tuned...

Contrasts

Well, it did snow most of the day last Wednesday (December 5th) but nothing stuck in our area. However when the temperature nosedived that night everything froze tight, including my car doors. I had to break into my car and chisel ice off the windshield early Thursday morning before I could cruise down the interstate to the Richmond airport for my flight to San Antonio. When I arrived there I promptly engaged the air conditioning in the rental car as the air temperature was a balmy 78 degrees with high humidity. Talk about contrasts! I was freezing my buns in the morning and by dinnertime I was walking around the block in shirtsleeves in Austin as I was visiting with my brother. The next day was even warmer as the temperatures in San Antonio reached the lower 80's. A great way to grab a break from December weather in DC!!

First snow of the season?

The DC area is tying itself up in apprehension over the white stuff that may (I repeat may) accumulate up to an inch or so from a shortwave clipper system that is to zoom through the region tomorrow. With no storms to chase for several months any mention of snow for our region provides a modicum of entertainment as panic grows with every forecast. I confess that I could live the rest of my life deliriously happy if I never saw the stuff again, but that has more to do with the accompanying cold weather than anything else. You can take the boy out of the tropics but you can't take the tropics out of the boy...