I alway preech not to get wrapped up in run to run changes in the models and try to just focus on the overall picture, but I can never manage to take my own advice.
Again the GFS is back on track with having Friday and Saturday as good chase days and then it wants to maintain troughing over the west coast with several disturbances making it’s way through the plains. For right now I am focused on Friday and Saturday. I was totally swamped at work today and never once checked the models until about twenty minutes ago. I obviously haven’t had enough time for forecast, but the overall setup for the weekend (especially Saturday) looks like a respectable chase day. When it comes to tornadoes the devil is in the details though.

So what’s been consistent in the overall picture (model to model and run to run)? Good moisture and moderate instability is a safe assumption with that since there hasn’t been an abundance of overnight convection being forecast (plus the GFS has been showing CAPE AOA 2500J/kg routinely). With the higher dewpoints, hopefullly low 60′s, LCL heights shoul be low once you get out over the warm sector. Basically the thermodynamics side of the story has been a little more clear than the kinematics side. 850mb winds are veering slightly in the latest GFS run, but not to the point where I think it would be a show stopper. Mid level flow has been sufficiently strong for deep layer shear to be in the 50kt range, which when combined with moderate instability will be quite favorable for supercells. The GFS doesn’t have much in the way of convection breaking out along the dryline on Saturday, but I’ve also said in the past that the GFS and NAM are awful on forecasting convection and not even worth looking at IMO, so I’m ignoring that. With a sharp moisture gradient we should break the cap.

Another good thing about this is that it’s in great chase territory. Right now it has the triple point in the Dode City/Woodwar/NE Texas panhandle area with the dryline running south from there. That’s right in the middle of good chase terrain so I’m sure the surface features will shift one way or another this week, but unless it shifts dramatically it should still be in good chase country.

This is not a forecast btw. This is just me throwing out my thoughts. I WILL forecast at work tomorrow. I havt to so I can tell my customers whether or not we’ll be chasing, so I will post a real forecast tomorrow.