April FTW

I can't wait to punt kick March 2010 into weather history. Some quick and depressing facts.

- It is the slowest start to the tornado season since 1988 - thats 22 years!

- There has not been a single severe report in the state of IL yet. Although, on March 11th there were plenty of penny and nickel size hail reports, however those are no longer considered severe...but its some food for thought.

- I now have the fewest number of logged chases since 2007. Lame.

Anyways, I'm not one of those patient chasers who can sit and wait for May. Its spring. I want to chase and I want to chase now...SO...what I see for April has me happy.

A nice troughing pattern! FINALLY. Of course though, there are problems. Number 1, which has been a problem since 2009 is lack of gulf moisture. When I'm done punt kicking March I am going to punt kick the GOM next. I suppose its not its fault. Stupid El Nino had system after system tracking along the gulf coast and kicking the GOM's ass.

What I found funny was during that time everyone was praising what the parade of wet systems would do for soil moisture...I guess we seemed to have forgotten about the effects of moisture suppressing cold fronts along with constant surges of cool dry air.

So within this pattern are also a parade of systems, with the dynamics that scream severe weather...but the moisture [or lack thereof] is going to put a serious hinder on any significant outbreak. Despite this, there should be enough to squeeze out some marginal setups, and probably the best we have seen all year, so I am thinking at the very least there will be some LP hailers to chase. I am okay with that.

The good news is it looks like this pattern may persist though at least the first half of the month as an omaga type blocking pattern sets up...if the ridge and high pressure can stay anchored over the southeast, this will give us many days for moisture to return to where it needs to be.

So, even if these first few setups within the pattern are meager at best, it would appear the atmosphere is priming itself for some big things even further down the road. El Nino springs in the past have been violent in the Midwest...and I am curious to see how this one will play out. I am keeping a close eye on how it evolves, to further educate myself in longer range pattern prediction.