Odds of a tropically-influenced chase?

2004 Remington VA F3 tornado from remnants of Ivan

Given the parade of disturbances emerging off the African coast and trudging across the Atlantic we may yet get a chance at chasing the remnants of a tropical system.  Two successful such chases that come to mind happened in 2002 (Isidore) and 2004 (Ivan), and one chase that I missed was 2005 when the remnants of the awesome Katrina roared through.  All three instances spawned tornadoes and all three occurred during the month of September, lending credence to the climatological tropical storm peak during that month.  These all occurred when the moist tropical air was stirred by the vorticity (spin) imparted by the fading remnants of these storms and cooked by the still strong September sunshine.  A more direct hit - a la Isabel in 2003 - is not conducive to anything but flooding and wind damage, so we certainly don't want that to occur again.  Even if such a setup occurs there's no guarantee that I'll be able to chase given what appears to be a very busy September schedule looming around the corner.  But you can bet I'll have my eyes open for the opportunity to chase!

Another frontal passage with no storms to chase

This visible satellite shot provides a good indicator of the cold front that is bisecting the Old Dominion at the moment.  As indicated by the tower just west of Richmond there is a strong cell with radar markers indicating up to 3/4" hailstones, but this and all the storms associated with the front stayed south of I-64 making it impossible for me to chase today.  The good news is that this front is ushering in dryer air which will make for more comfortable weather the next several days. 

Convection, but no chase

Can we say "FROPA"?  Well, at least a prefrontal convective line; the true frontal passage looks like it occurred a couple hours after this radar view.  This looks a lot more impressive than it really was at the time, since the storms intensified a bit -tho' not much - after they moved east of Fredericksburg.  The good stuff was well north of us, with no watches, warnings, or storm reports for our area as of 8:30 pm.  Thus the previous indications of just garden variety storms proved correct.  I did go out to observe the approach of this line and experienced the outflow, but that's about as exciting as it got. 

Chesapeake Bay breeze front

Not much happening storm chase wise, with just  a chance of garden variety thunderstorms tomorrow and not much else this week.  So, in the interest of keeping my sanity I'm noticing other features such as the surface observation map above.  The blue line - which I inserted - is roughly the position of the Chesapeake Bay breeze front as it moves westward from the cooler water over the warmer land.  Visual evidence of this is shown on this visible satellite shot:

Such features have been known to fire off convection in our area when the synoptic conditions are right (light winds, plenty of instability, etc.).  Unfortunately the convective conditions aren't ripe at the moment so this is just a noticeable curiosity.

Severe TS watch, but a BIIIIG hole in the convection

I've edited the above radar grab to indicate my normal targeted chase area:  south of I-66, north of I-64, east of the Blue Ridge and west of U.S. Rte 301.  (I do stray outside of this box but it represents 90% of my chases.)   Does anybody notice a little problem?  (NOTE:  The entire area is under a severe TS watch.)  Nothing happened in this area!!!  I started in Culpeper and determined that the cells near Charlottesville were going to move out of reach, especially if they turned right and went severe like the complex to the west of Richmond did.  I then headed north to Bealeton and waited on the towers building in the Shenandoah Valley before determining it would likely be midnight before they approached my position (okay, so I exaggerated slightly).  So I scooted south to the Fredericksburg area to intercept a couple of cells that fired on a northward moving outflow boundary from the I-64 cells but all I saw was dissipating towers and disgustingly heavy traffic.  Right now there is a slowly moving cell headed away from the Blue Ridge toward Culpeper, but the radar history shows a lot of starts and stops with the intensity of that cell.  I am inclined to already label today a B-U-S-T, altho' there is still an hour or so of daylight left.  What a waste of a perfectly good severe TS watch!

12 August chase

Whew!  This has been a very busy storm day, starting with the strong line that roared through DC this morning, just missing our area.  After that passage the atmosphere recovered its instability quickly with abundant sunshine and plenty of moisture, giving rise to more storms early this afternoon.  Picking out a southeastward moving cell I headed to western Spotsylvania county and watched the approach of the storm shown above, with this picture taken at 4:09 p.m.  The storm had already turned right - a good sign of severity - so I felt confident that this was the one to grab as it did have a severe warning on it.  The lowering under this rain free base was trying to organize, drawing in scud from the rain shaft and pulling in air from the south, but I never visually confirmed rotation.  Unfortunately the next storm to the north was the one I SHOULD have chosen as seen in this radar image:

Note the tornado warning box (purple) and the tornado icon!!  One must live with the choices one makes, so I stayed with my storm as long as I could until the rain blanked out visibility.  I then maneuvered my way through central Spotsylvania and wound up in Thornburg, all the while trying to keep an eye on the rain free base.  I managed to catch a few more glimpses of what looked tantalizingly like a wall cloud, but between the tree lines, winding roads, heavy traffic, and intermittent heavy rains I never got another clear view.
There are even more severe storms plowing southward from the DC area as I write this, so I may get another shot at an intercept this evening.  The southern movement of these storms is yet again an example of how weird this season has been.  I have chased very few storms this year that have had the usual southwest - to - northeast trajectory, thanks to the upper level ridge that has altered the storm tracks.  But, a chase is a chase is a chase!

UPDATE 8/14 10:10 a.m.: I changed out the picture of the lowering that I've edited with a new (to me) photo editor:  Photoscape.

Mini-waterspout in Russia, maybe storms here soon

Check out this video from Russia...looks like an intense dust devil over a small pond.

Meanwhile we could see storms of our own the next few days as a weak cold front slides down the coast.  Best day for chasing appears to be Thursday, but that's in doubt given the amount of cloud cover that will suppress convection.  I will, however, be prepared!!  (And yes, I was a Boy Scout for a short while!)

Storms this evening, storms tomorrow

This line of severe-warned storms encroaching on Virginia territory reminds me of this morning's line that woke me at 4:30 a.m.  We can thank the huge high pressure dome in the southern Plains for these fast-moving convective lines that approach us from the northwest as part of the "Ring of Fire".  The clockwise circulation around the high pressure plus the weakening of the cap on the periphery of the selfsame high allows convection to fire, organize, and then speed southeastward on the strong upper level winds that are enhanced on the north edge of the high pressure dome.  This line could reach us about dark tonight, with more - and stronger - storms forecast to develop tomorrow afternoon as a "cold" front wins the battle with the high pressure dome,  pushing it further south and ushering in cooler and dryer air into the Mid-Atlantic.  The SPC has us under a slight risk for severe weather tomorrow, with high winds the primary threat.  Could there be a chase on the horizon?

UPDATE 8:40 p.m.:  Line is passing thru the area now, and we're under a severe TS warning for high winds.  The leading edge approach was really cool-looking, but I hope no one loses electricity from downed power lines.  Also there is another system organizing over Indiana and western Ohio at the moment that could affect our early morning again, so be warned!   "Ring of Fire" indeed!