Status: GO for Saturday IOP

Teams are enroute, or will soon be, to the Monroe LA subdomain of VORTEX-SE. This is one of two subdomains we will use this year, depending on the forecasted weather.

A narrow mid-tropospheric jet is forecast to be advancing toward Louisiana from the west-northwest on Saturday. To the north of this jet, lift will be strong, likely leading to quite a bit of precipitation and low-level cooling. To the south, the air will be sinking which should enhance the “lid” and possibly limit convection. Between these two regions, there should be a narrow goldilocks zone of sufficient CAPE and strong shear that could support some low-level rotation. Of course, many things can go wrong (and usually do, to the benefit of the general public) with this scenario and any convection may be non-rotating.

We will deploy one mobile C-band “SMART-Radar” from OU to pair with the U. Louisiana-Monroe S-band research radar, and ULM mobile sounding teams. The NOAA P-3 aircraft will likely take off midday Saturday and head toward Louisiana, if this forecast holds up. They will make radar observations of the most interesting storms, and will focus on storms over the ground radar domain near Monroe when storms are present there.

There is a slim chance that there will be tornado potential in the Georgia/N Florida area on Sunday. Although we don’t have a ground subdomain there, the P-3 aircraft may fly a mission to observe storms in that region.

Thereafter, we expect quiet conditions until the following weekend.

One more time with the caveat: forecasting conditions for a field observing program are very different than forecasting for more general purposes. We are generally fine with a “busted forecast”, especially if we are able to obtain data to tell us why we busted. Learning what processes reduce tornado potential are almost as interesting as catching tornadic events. Because tornadoes are rare, we have to observe most everything that comes along with even a little potential. And this spring, our focus is not so much on the physical processes in the atmosphere in the Southeast, but learning how to make much better observations in this difficult region.