This guest post is from Ash, a member of the Titans and a mental health specialist. Check out her Substack and give it a sub:

ash

🧠 Licensed mental health therapist | 🌪️ Storm chaser | Exploring storms of both the literal and metaphorical sort- and the people that love them- with the intention of building more resilient communities.

The storm chasing community has not always been easy to defend.

Those of us who have been in this community long enough know what it feels like to watch something we love produce outcomes that embarrass us- the convoy that wouldn’t yield, the footage uploaded that centers the chaser instead of the devastated community. We know the puzzled look from the outside world- and the harder, quieter version of it we give each other when no one is performing for an audience. We have felt the gap between what this community is capable of and what it sometimes chooses.

But this post is not about the gap. It’s about what could sit on the other side of it.

What We Actually Do

Let’s start with honesty about the claim we keep making:

We do not save lives as a matter of course. It does happen on occasion, yes. but the statement is often too large, too reflexive, too often reached for when someone is questioning our conduct rather than our contribution. It functions as a credential- when it should function as a responsibility. And when it functions as a hollow, meaningless credential, it does damage- to our own integrity, to the trust we need from the communities and institutions we operate alongside, and to the people for whom the claim is most personal.

Think about the family in the farmhouse- the one watching the wall cloud organize to their southwest while twelve vehicles they don’t recognize sit at the end of their drive. Or the town that got hit last spring, that is still metabolizing the loss, where the warning came and people still didn’t make it. To stand in front of those communities and say we save lives without the full weight of what that means- without the accountability that should come with it- is not a contribution; it’s a performance. And they can most certainly tell the difference.

The honest version is this: if we are in the right place at the right time with the right training, we contribute to warning systems that save lives. We have the capacity to be the first on scene of a destroyed house even before first responders, and we can pull people out of life-or-death situations. These are some of the most noble, significant moments in a storm chaser’s life. But it requires the right place, the right time, and the right training- and it requires us to be honest about when we have those things and when we don’t. Trustworthiness is the only currency that actually matters in this ecosystem.

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What Generative Chasing Looks Like

There is a version of this community that is generative- that produces something of value for every system it touches.

It looks like chasers who contribute to science not because it justifies their access, but because the science matters. Who understand that ground truth data, tornado climatology, the mesoscale processes that still aren’t fully understood — these are worth showing up for independent of whether anyone is watching. Who treat the atmosphere as the thing itself.

It looks like the storm chasing educator who takes real footage into schools in tornado-prone communities and gives young people a framework for what they’re seeing when the sky changes- and how to get to shelter quick. It’s the storm chasing content creator that breaks down complex meteorological concepts for nerdy laypeople like myself to better understand atmospheric magic as it unfolds- and that knowledge helps us stay safe when we’re out chasing. These contributions exist because someone loved the atmosphere enough to share it, and that love transferred.

It looks like staying engaged with impacted communities after the storm. Showing up not just when the sky is doing something spectacular, but also when the people underneath it are trying to put their lives back together. Remembering that the places we chase are not just coordinates on a map- they are people’s homes, people’s loved ones, people’s histories, people’s entire worlds. Using platforms built chasing storms to raise awareness and resources for the communities those storms hit. Donating.

It looks like the photographer who captures something that has never been captured before and never will be again- a structure, a panacea of light and color, a moment of atmospheric violence that becomes the image someone puts in a classroom, that makes a student understand for the first time what the atmosphere is actually capable of- and inspires them into a career.

It looks like the storm tour operator who puts someone under their first supercell and watches them become a different person on the other side of it- someone who understands weather not as an abstraction, but as a living system they have stood inside. And that they themselves are as dynamic as the weather systems they love- and that gives them a reason to live.

It looks like being honest about what we love. We love nature in all her ferocity and all her beauty. We love the ephemeral- the storm that will never exist again in exactly this configuration. We love the science and the skill and the community of people who understand why you would drive eight hours deep into nowhere for a storm. That love is legitimate. It does not need to be justified by EF ratings or other metrics. It is enough on its own, and it is the thing that was here before the cameras- and will be here after the algorithms change.

Toward a Trauma-Informed Chasing Framework

The communities we operate in are not neutral spaces. They are places where people have survived things, where the anniversary of a tornado is not an abstraction, where the sight of a convoy of chase vehicles on a county road activates something that has nothing to do with the current weather.

Trauma-informed practice is a framework developed in clinical and social service settings that starts from a single premise: when you are operating in environments where people have experienced trauma, your presence has an impact independent of your intentions. It asks practitioners to shift from “what is wrong with this person” to “what has happened to this person”- and to let that shift change how they move through the environment, communicate, and make decisions. It was developed for therapists and social workers and first responders. It can apply, with full force, to storm chasers.

A trauma-informed chaser understands that the family watching twelve vehicles park at the end of their drive during a tornado warning is not just inconvenienced- they may be terrified, and the terror may be connected to something that happened long before we arrived. It means slowing down enough to register that the town you are driving through in May is still metabolizing what happened in May three years ago. It means treating the communities we move through as full human environments, rather than operational terrain.

In practice, it looks like this: you introduce yourself to locals when you can. You explain what you are doing in plain language. You do not park in front of driveways. You do not film residential damage without permission. You do not upload footage of someone’s destroyed home before they know their family is safe. You use your platform, if you have one, to direct resources toward impacted communities, rather than just directing attention to how cool you are because you are a storm chaser. This is fundamental behavior when you operate with awareness and thoughtfulness.

Trauma-informed practice applies to our relationships with first responders too. The emergency managers and sheriffs and highway patrol officers we share the road with are themselves carrying cumulative exposure- seasons of mass casualty events, notifications, the weight of being responsible for communities in acute crisis. That exposure changes how they respond to anything that feels like a threat to their ability to do their job. A trauma-informed chaser understands that the sheriff who wrote the letter to the legislature is not simply an obstacle. He is a person whose nervous system has learned, through repeated experience, to treat certain behaviors as dangerous. Changing that learning requires repeated experiences of something different. That is our responsibility as much as his.

And it applies to each other. The chasing community has its own trauma history: the deaths, the close calls, the personal costs of this lifestyle. We have built a culture that prizes toughness and has historically treated psychological vulnerability as incompatible with the identity- and we all know on some level that this culture is costing us. It is producing people who are running on unprocessed grief and calling it passion, who are making decisions in the field from a dysregulated nervous system- and will some day get bit by their impaired decision-making. Trauma-informed chasing starts with being honest about what we are carrying- and creating enough safety inside this community that people can put it down sometimes.

Growing Community

We don’t to be regulated into basic conduct. We do not need a licensing body or a legislative framework to have standards. We just need the willingness to come together and build one.

The ethical bottom line is not complicated. We contribute- or we do what we can to prevent negative impact on the people and communities with whom we interact as we chase. We move through impacted communities with awareness and respect. We use whatever platform we have- large or small- in service of something larger than our own metrics. We tell the truth about what we do- and what we don’t do. We share real stories that reveal that chasing isn’t the glamor that it’s been portrayed to be on TV.

And then the things that should not need to be said but do: we drive legally. We yield for emergency vehicles. We treat each other with respect and act with integrity. We don’t bully each other online.

None of this requires a credential. All it requires a decision- made individually and collectively- about what kind of community we want to be.

The momentum toward that community already exists. It lives in the chasers who stay after the storm, in the ones who call in the report and keep driving, in the ones who show up to the pre-season briefing and introduce themselves, in the ones who use their platforms to raise money for the town that got hit, in the ones who check on each other when a season gets heavy. It lives in the photographers and the tour operators and the educators and the scientists and the people who have always known that this work is about something more than dopamine and followers and proximity to destruction.

We are not going to become that community through legislation or calling people out. We are going to become it the way every community becomes what it wants to be- through enough people deciding- one at a time and together- that the version of this thing they love is worth showing up for.

ash

🧠 Licensed mental health therapist | 🌪️ Storm chaser | Exploring storms of both the literal and metaphorical sort- and the people that love them- with the intention of building more resilient communities.

On the move: The ridge that has dominated the weather over the United States for the last 3 months is finally moving, allowing for SW flow over the western United States over the next few days. In the short term, this is leading to severe weather risks across places like Utah, with damaging winds likely. Long-term, this SW flow will bring in gradually drier air, shutting the monsoon down a bit.

In the middle, between the strong ridge in the east and the SW flow aloft in the west, will be the dry and hot Great Plains.

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7-Day Precip Forecast

Moisture hole: The middle of the country will remain in a moisture hole with little rainfall, while a slightly more active pattern surrounds it on the fringes. However, there are no signs that this pattern is breaking through the first week of September.

Any Signs This Pattern Will Break?

I don't see any reason to be excited about a major pattern change. Dry air remains dominant over the middle of the country. I do think the pattern eventually breaks, and perhaps violently, in September with SW flow-driven severe weather. But from everything I see, that is still 2-3 weeks away. The hotspot of the last 3 months will remain along the fringes of the ridge until then.

TitanTrack Updates

Just wanted to share that we’ve been hard at work on TitanTrack over the last week to improve the overall reliability of the data amid much stronger demand than anticipated (I’m actually surprised by the strong response and usage patterns!).

No new features generally, sans one. We added a full sounding modification for HRRR and Mesonalysis forecast soundings.

The most helpful use for this tool is to adjust the sounding to better reflect real surface conditions and perhaps to account for less warm/dry air just above the surface. But you can use it to modify a sounding at any level, especially if an 18z sounding yields a surprising or different result. If winds are 10kt off at the 500 mb level according to the 18z sounding, you can apply that adjustment across the whole range and give soundings a more accurate read of the atmosphere.

Many more features are coming, but short-term work is focused on improving the system's overall reliability and stability to meet our more intense user demand.

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Ridge Isn’t Going Anywhere

Persistent Ridge: Nothing has moved the ridge off of its perch in the Southern U.S. over the last 3 months now. We’ve had wobbles of the ridge, even slight weakening at times, but it has persisted and dominated the weather pattern over the U.S.

Drought Rising: This has led to ever-more dire drought conditions across the middle of the country, back into the Southwest -- where monsoon rains have, so far, been hit-or-miss.

Long Term: I'm not seeing much in the name of signs that this ridge is going to fully break in the coming couple of weeks. However, as we move into September, ensembles are beginning to weaken and flatten out the ridge.

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TitanTrack Tool Tip

The difference in SSI (Base) and Supercell Threat Index is in the formulation, of course — SSI base is basically answering the question: Storms? A few severe ingredients? PAINT!

It’s a bare minimum calculation that’s helpful in patterns like these with monsoon-ish vibes. It’s sniffed out severe storms out here in ‘no risk’ situations many times already this summer.

On the other end, the Supercell Threat Index is looking for more overall, and it’s always going to show lower, and sometimes 0, where SSI is pretty hot. It’s asking: Storms? UH? Strong UH? Supercell ingredient stack? If yes, PAINT!

It’s kind of brutally simple, but it combines how I approach a chase forecast with a single field. They inherit all of the limitations of the REFS model, of course, so if you get bad data in, these are going to combine that bad data into bad data out. I’m not here to claim 100% accuracy, just a 100% shortcut for those looking for a quick glance on any given day.

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Learn Mesoanalysis While Using TitanTrack

Programming Note: While we are increasing the frequency of newsletters once again — this author will be going on a well-deserved vacation this next week (weather permitting). So expect no newsletters next week, but when that ridge is breaking down you’ll likely hear from me about all of that in early September.

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Most likely, storms should form this afternoon or evening in the northern/western 1/2 of Nebraska. Supercells seem like a good bet, with 40kt of 500mb flow aloft mixed with strong to even extreme instability. The question will be timing: can storms get going before the sun sets? If so, despite weak low-level shear, I wouldn’t count out a tornado today.

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We Launched A New Site

If you missed our prior e-mail, we just launched an entirely new online weather experience with TitanTrack, our new web app, at the center. It works on all devices on day 1 and allows you to do all sorts of cool things with it. Check it out using this link.

Mesoanalysis for the 21st Century Storm Enthusiast

Generally speaking, a weather enthusiast examining the atmosphere in real-time has had the same set of tools available for over a decade. This is because those tools have been timeless and will exist well into the future. But we wanted to make something that allows you to combine and build your own experience mixed with the educational work we are known for. That was the basis behind why we built TitanTrack.

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Pattern Eases a Bit Into the Weekend

We’ll still see some severe risks into the weekend, but the ridge will flatten out a bit and the jet stream will ease aloft, keeping a lid on the overall intensity of activity into the weekend with just a marginal risk or three outlined for Saturday right now.

I wouldn’t rule out a few supercells in the Central High Plains, with hail/damaging winds the primary threats.

In other news, the monsoon continues without ceasing, and this storm chaser will likely be out and looking for some pretty electric cells over the weekend. I’ll see you all out there.

Most weather apps show you products. TitanTrack helps you combine them, interrogate storms, and understand why the atmosphere behaves the way it does.

The goal of TitanTrack is to make tracking weather events accessible for every weather enthusiast, and it contains the DNA of our educational instincts so you might just learn a thing or two along the way. Enjoy the process of stacking layers and seeing how different ingredients interact in real time, while also monitoring a storm's internal metrics and how they change.

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We’ve built every part of TitanTrack for weather enthusiasts like us, people who want more than the standard weather app, want to understand events as they unfold, and don’t mind trying something genuinely different.

I suspect that’ll be something some folks won’t enjoy as much, and if so, that is ok! The wonderful thing about the weather app space is that there is enough variety for everyone; this is just our entry.

Here are five things that TitanTrack can do that I particularly enjoy:

1) Stacking Layers in Real Time

TitanTrack isn’t a full-tilt radar app and has no intention of bringing full 3D volume scans into it. What it can do is combine several atmospheric layers at once to deliver real-time analysis and intel.

In the screenshot below, you can see 500 mb winds (mid-level jet stream winds) overlaid with real-time radar/warnings/watches and MLCAPE (a measure of instability).

2) Per-Cell Advanced Intel

Something I’m finding myself enjoying is the many ways to gather intel on a storm and what it’s up to. In the example below, you can see our four threat scores, which combine the storm cell’s internal dynamics with the environment and ground-truth reports to give a storm a score that lets you track its progress in real time. That makes it easier to see whether a storm is strengthening, weakening, or shifting toward a different primary hazard altogether.

You can track everything from the cell’s history to the environment it will move through during the next three hours.

3) Ensemble Forecast Models

One of the keys to the year-after-year success we’ve had in storm chasing is knowing how to use and decode ensemble models. We’ve included three in TitanTrack, with more to come on the model front.

But my favorite features have been our proprietary fields, which combine elements of the ensemble run to deliver intel you won’t find anywhere else. Think of it as an ensemble shortcut for people like me who would rather interpret one useful signal than mentally combine a dozen fields every time.

I highly recommend our SSI fields (Severe Storms Index), especially the base field — which combines the probability of storms on the REFS with the likelihood that severe weather ingredients overlap. It’s pretty rad.

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4) Presets and Layer Controls

One of my favorite things to do in the app is switching between presets and quickly enabling different layers. I spent, admittedly, way too much time on this. This is only the first version, but even now I do think switching from Storms to Flooding to see the various products in a focused setting feels pretty nifty.

5) Our Boxed Soundings Regional Inspector

I needed to save my favorite feature for last.

I’ve always tried to point out to anyone who will listen the importance of collecting more data for soundings. I decided to make that the default method for analyzing the atmosphere in TitanTrack. But analyzing the atmosphere means having multiple tools at your disposal.

Our soundings take an entirely new path, with real language to explain what the sounding actually shows, perfect for the beginner storm tracker.

And our hodographs include multiple options, including the ability to set a manual right-mover motion to match what’s actually happening in the moment. Soon, you’ll be able to modify the entire sounding and choose between multiple models and even model blends to analyze what’s going on out there.

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This Is The Beta Version

The roadmap for the future, first off, involves today’s critical step of a public release. However, this is only the beginning of the road for this product. This is a genuine beta. Some workflows will change, some features will need refinement, and we expect users to find things we missed. That feedback is part of why we’re opening it up now.

There’s much more coming to TitanTrack. And there’s a whole lot more this app does that I haven’t even begun to touch on, but will soon.

And I haven’t mentioned it yet, but we’ve also completely redesigned and rebuilt TornadoTitans.com and Titan U from the ground up.

We may be 17 years old, but we’re just getting started. Stay tuned for more exciting updates in the coming weeks!

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The ridge, centered on the southwest U.S. right now, is forecast to weaken over the next week as a new monsoonal moisture surge makes its way north.

A few severe storms remain possible from the Central Plains into the Southwest, along with another possible zone along I-20 in Texas later today. The main threats remain hail and damaging winds, as things just aren’t quite lined up for tornado potential anywhere. Additionally, dry air seeping in from the east continues today, with a large overall downtick in monsoonal storm coverage away from the higher terrain.

A 500mb ridge over the SW US will weaken this next week, bringing a surge in monsoonal moisture into the Southwest with a large uptick in storm activity across New Mexico, Arizona, and adjacent portions of the desert SW. Severe weather chances will continue across the Northern and Central Plains, associated with the jet stream that’s riding up and over the ridge this week.

In short: the pattern of the last two-ish months will persist through this next week as well, with minor variations from region to region.

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Storms are up in Nebraska already, with some of them showing rotation, but most are showing a more blobby appearance. Whie the environment will technically support cold-pool dominant supercells, complex storm interactions and upscale growth will likely lead to a more linear/blobby multicell look through much of the day with damaging winds the primary threat.

The main driver of this is a small disturbance working its way over the top of the ridge, with 500mb winds at 25-35kt over the region. This is helping that shear increase just enough to create an environment that favors storm longetivity.

The aforementioned high is centered over SE New Mexico, where we’re seeing a fresh batch of monsoon convection again today work its way around the western edge of the ridge as storm activity under and around the immediate periphery of the ridge center is squashed. It’s been an eventful monsoon season already, and I feel like the busiest months will be August and September. We’re all very happy about that in the Southwest.

The Pattern Ahead

Looking ahead…the pattern is going to largely persist in where it’s been for much of the last month.

A ridge will sit over the southwest United States and will wobble to and fro over the coming days. This will impact where the monsoonal activity sets up on any given day, but it won’t suppress activity altogether.

The main corridor of very active severe weather will remain across the Northern Plains and down the immediate east/south side of the ridge where there’s plenty of monsoonal moisture and shear to fuel storms.

This pattern should persist much of the first part of August as well, with the ridge bouncing around in location and strength but never fully going away. The monsoon rolls on, and so does storm season.

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Down here, it’s been a lot of pulse/pop-up type of stuff on the Plains into the Southwest with the monsoon pattern ramping up.

The Big Driver

The big driver of our current pattern is a powerful ridge of high pressure sitting over the middle of the country, pushing that jet stream way north.

Curious about the jet stream? It’s a good day to learn! We actually have a new video on that below:

Ring of Fire

The ring of fire pattern we’re seeing is resulting in ample storm opportunities around the periphery of the ridge, from up in Canada to down into the desert SW. Daily rounds of storms are expected from Arizona back towards Texas, with heavy rainfall possible in localized regions.

Severe weather threats will remain on the low end of the scale, but damaging winds and small hail are possible in a pattern like this, as very low wind shear will combine with tropical moisture. However, shear has weakened quite a bit over the last week, and the threats may be more sporadic than they have been.

This isn’t a banner pattern of severe weather in the US, and won’t be for a while.

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Super El Niño

You’ve no doubt heard about this one, and it’s true, we’re seeing something pretty unprecedented since records have been kept in terms of oceanic warming.

The Pacific Ocean is running a fever, which is going to almost certainly lead to this year being amongst the warmest on record.

An El Niño event like this one is without a lot of historical precedent, so it’s hard to say if the effects of a typical Nino pattern are amped or if we get something a bit different. The additional moisture content in the atmosphere and likely southern track of the jet stream will likely mean an active late summer through winter from California into the Southeast, with heavy rainfall/snow possible.

Typically, El Niños have a modulating/lessening effect on tornadoes in the year after they form…typically. In 1998, the country saw over 1400 tornadoes with several of them violent in what is the only realistic comparison to this year’s El Niño. That’s a small sample though, and it’s far too early to talk next spring when I personally think Fall this year might end up busy.

But that’s for another newsletter…

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For the Monsoon, we look for tropical moisture to be carried from both the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of California over the SW U.S., sometimes also supplemented by Pacific moisture, which will likely be the case this year with a busy tropical season on tap down there.

A high-pressure ridge builds and cycles this moisture around and underneath it daily, with daily storms that lead to heavy rain, flash flooding, and some of the most picturesque stormscapes on planet Earth (sorry, the storm chaser came out in me early today).

What Will This Year Look Like?

Look, here’s the deal, the record-breaking El Niño is creating a few traps in terms of forecaster confidence. I’m certain there’s going to be more moisture than typical around, but who gets how much rain is very much an open question. What I do feel confident in is this: the monsoon season will have a long tail into autumn this year, with a very robust ‘transition season’ pattern along with the classic monsoon pattern.

The Euro weeklies are trending drier over time for July, which is not a surprise: a lot of El Nino year monsoons start late and end late.

However, the Euro is by far and away the driest model, which isn’t typically the case. It’s a brave new world this year or something.

The CFS weeklies are similar in showing a drier eastern CONUS, but the west is much wetter as we move into mid-July. Which leads to lowered confidence short-term with how robust the monsoon pattern will be early.

This is where I tend to just go to the ensembles and #trust.

For July, the NMME is showing positive precip anomalies over many areas in the Southwest, which more closely matches what I’m seeing on current extended/operational models which are showing a monsoonal moisture surge beginning next week.

By August, the vibes look to continue on the NMME with a continued active pattern across the west. I’m not getting too worked up either way, but a slightly above normal signal is probably a sign we’ll see an active pattern throughout the summer months. It may just be not everyone is active all the time.

However, once we get towards the latter part of the classic monsoon season and into fall…things get busy.

Sepetember is showing widespread positive anomalies across the Southwest, which matches with historical trends and my own personal expectations. I think the supercell/severe weather chances this fall will be plentiful in the Southwest actually. The monsoon will be very active at this point.

October isn’t classically known as a monsoon month, but I think it’ll have a lot of those vibes even as the temps cool, thanks to a more active storm track. Again, I suspect many severe weather opportunities, classic monsoons, and, by the end of the month, maybe even mountain snows?

I shouldn’t get excited and call for wetness in an area so frequently marred by drought, but if there’s anything that can snap the SW out of a cyclically long drought, it’s gotta be a record-breaking El Niño. At least that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself…

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Monsoon Chasing: Best Time?

I’m timing a lot of my trips to various locations later in the season, with a slight lean towards August/September for a lot of different possibilities.

However, don’t sleep on July. I’m eyeing this first burst as a possible first trip period for a weekend, possibly somewhere a bit more ‘non-traditional’ into the inland parts of the west. We’ll see. I’m excited about the very real likelihood of an enhanced and active monsoon pattern.

Pattern Update

Overall, I’m not seeing a lot that says, “big pattern change imminent” — we’re basically stuck in the same type of pattern we’ve been in for what seems like two months. It’s basically the same thing on repeat.

A western trough with a ridge over the SE continues to dominate our weather. However, the western trough is, like it has been much of the Spring after April, skirting well to the north and taking aim over the Central/Northern Plains.

As the week goes on this week, the broad W/SW flow aloft will continue, with storms likely taking shape most days across places like the Texas Panhandle, E/SE Colorado and W Kansas. Shear is favorable enough we’ll likely continue a slow/steady drumbeat of marginal type of risks throughout the next week.

Precipitation-wise, there are two regimes worth knowing about: the first is the aforementioned one over the High Plains with daily storm chances with small wetting footprints but damaging winds/hail being possible.

The other is the typical summertime storm activity over the south, which will do what that pattern does — lots of storms each afternoon with small footprints with localized damaging wind gusts possible.

Neither is “big time”, sorry we don’t do hype around here. But they’re both worthy of your respect. Be sure to stay weather aware out there this week and stay hydrated.

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Read Helicity Maps The Right Way

You’ve probably been looking at helicity wrong this whole time. New research has been coming out showing that the traditional maps (0-1km and 0-3km) aren’t the best indicies for assessing things like tornado potential. Find out more in our latest video:

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Stay cool out there.

But the threat is broader than that…

An enhanced threat of hail and wind exists for the Southern/Central Plains today as well. And it’s the pattern driving the risks we’ve been seeing:

Broad SW flow aloft exists from border to border in the country. This flow, when it overlaps moist and unstable air, sets the stage for severe weather more often than not. While surface temps remain hot and moisture more limited. There’s still enough of everything to provide an atmosphere favorable for severe storms with hail and damaging winds as the primary threats through the rest of this week.

However, as we look ahead into this weekend this flow begins to weaken and turn out of the Northwest. While this isn’t necessarily a storm pattern ender in June, it still tends to limit the overall tornado chances comparatively. Thus, while storm chances will likely continue, we’ll see the chances remain rather modest throughout the period for anything but damaging winds and hail. I could see at least one additional MCS event through this period though, which is right on schedule per the calendar.

By early next week, strong northwest flow will dive south over the Plains and crash a cold front all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. That’ll limit overall storm chances for a couple of days into early next week.

By late next week moisture should recover though, with an expansive dryline from Nebraska to Texas. June isn’t quiet at all in terms of severe weather, just it isn’t a prolific tornado producer…yet.

Overall Threats

Overall, I think the highest threats (outside of the Northern Plains) will remain scattered wind and hail. Last night, we saw 100mph winds at Salina, KS, so that’s not a risk to sleep on. But the tornado risks will remain lower end.

To my eye, there are a few solid chances for severe weather coming up through the rest of this week to continue yesterday’s theme, with the highest tornado chances coming on Friday or Saturday in the Central/Southern Plains. We’ll be out chasing for sure. Hope to see you on our live stream on YouTube!

I’m not sure why they’re all burning their cameras right now, I thought I was excellent.

Anywho, let’s talk weather.

1)The Season is DEAD

That’s right, pick any ensemble you want and the season is truly well done, burnt-toast, dead. It’s over. Pack it up. A giant ridge is parked over the middle of the country and no ensemble weakens it, everything strengthens and amplifies the ridge into June.

While there will be some chances for severe weather on the apex of the ridge up towards the Dakotas, the lack of quality moisture will be hard to overcome for much more than continued sporadic/scattered severe weather chances.

This is why you don’t try to become a professional storm chaser kids, seasons like this one, where weeks of quiet with nothing meaningful to show for tons of work become something that is part tragedy and part warning-story.

Pack it up, it’s over.

2)The Season is ALIVE

Now…despite all of that, the subtle pattern we’ve been in since early this month is persisting. Another low will give a glancing blow to the Plains, sending just enough energy to organize a few severe storms today through at least Saturday.

This is that type of stuff we talked about in the season preview. Mid-level flow will be anemic, heck, all flow is anemic. Moisture is just good enough. The hodograph shape is curved, albeit small. So a supercell or two amidst a lot of multi-cells with an eventual upscale growth into a linear complex seems to be the most likely outcome each day.

This is not late-May tornado outbreak weather to be sure — but it is a steady drumbeat pattern that may persist even into June despite the building ridging. Precip totals for the first 10-15 days of June on most ensembles are truly impressive, which points to an active regime where the ridging does not suppress storm activity completely but it does limit the amount of shear and moisture. So the storm season will continue for the Plains, just it will continue about where it’s been.

3)Catch Us Live

We’ll be out and about a lot of the upcoming days as time permits, the geography makes sense, and the setup is worthy enough. If you haven’t done so, it’s a great day to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Finally, we’re seeing hints of a ‘bigger’ day out of this pattern, which was expected but uncertain about when. Let’s talk about it.

Today

Today, ingredients are pretty low-end across much of the region, with a bit more oomph in the atmosphere up into KS and Iowa. Still, even there, the main risk today will be hail and damaging winds as moisture isn’t quite where it needs to be, and shear is still lower end.

Further south, moisture is very limited, and the overall risk of severe weather is on the lower end. Hail and damaging winds are the main threats north, with damaging winds the dominant threat further south (but hail is a secondary threat).

Tomorrow

Tomorrow, the ingredients are just a little more favorable across the board on the Plains. In Nebraska, shear and instability will be enough to support a sustained supercell threat — though high-based most likely. Models are pretty insistent that storms will eventually form into a linear complex tomorrow up that way as the cold pools from the high-based cells merge. A low tornado threat, but mainly hail/damaging winds.

Further south, the tornado threat is very low, but hail and damaging winds will be possible with any storms that can get going along a dryline. High-cloud bases are certain down in OK/TX, as is a stronger cap. Historically, I’ve seen some dynamic storms in those environments for sure, but they tend to struggle in terms of tornadoes because the high bases and capping both make sustaining low-level mesocyclones difficult.

Sunday

The big question for me on Sunday is where will storms form?

The most likely area is up in Nebraska again, but moisture is more limited so bases may initially be higher. Still, I could see a supercell, hail, and tornado threat emerging that way into the evening.

Further south on the dryline in KS and OK, the shear and moisture combos tend to suggest a more classic supercell and tornado threat — lower-end due to capping and storm-coverage uncertainty, but present.

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What I think happens is that a few supercells break through the cap in the afternoon hours and persist for 3-5 hours before dissipating into the evening. A classic dryline chase with a small window for a tornado or two and some giant hail.

Monday

By Monday, forcing aloft will increase as will shear and moisture.

I’m not going to mince words: pattern recognition tells me a big risk (and big hype) is coming on Monday from Oklahoma to Nebraska/Iowa.

Overall profiles look extremely favorable for supercells and tornadoes on this day. As with any possible ‘big’ day, the questions I have are the details we can’t see at this range.

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If I can find some time, I’ll write about Monday more in-depth in this newsletter over the weekend, as well as what I’m seeing beyond Monday. But for now, just circle that day, especially bright, as it’ll probably be a day that demands attention.

If you haven’t done so, be sure to subscribe to us on YouTube — we’re debuting TitanTrack this weekend and into next week, and it’ll represent a brand new way to watch live storm chasing streams.

We have always believed that weather is a reality we all share, and that knowledge is the only true defense when the atmosphere turns dangerous. Our number one goal has always been to provide knowledge about severe weather. I’m excited about what we are about to unveil starting this weekend: the ultimate live storm chase platform for those who want to learn in real time about storms as they happen.

Introducing TitanTrack

TitanTrack is a first-of-its-kind atmospheric command center that re-engineers how we experience the sky during a live chase. TitanTrack is a major step forward in scientific communication and the most ambitious broadcast intelligence ever used during a live weather broadcast.

When you sit down to watch a Tornado Titans live stream this season, you will see two layers working together. On top, camera angles wrap around the chase vehicle to deliver a 360-degree tactical vantage point: in every direction the team can look, you can look. Underneath that visual layer, an advanced computational engine narrates the entire day in real time and lets us teach about the storms with live telestration and more.

What TitanTrack actually does

Every single second, TitanTrack recomputes the state of the atmosphere. It tracks dozens of critical parameters from the surface to the stratosphere, fusing high-resolution radar, dual-satellite imagery, geostationary lightning detection, official watches and warnings, and the same mesoanalysis fields professional forecasters use into a single integrated picture.

It then translates that raw, complex data into vital context. Why is this storm rotating? What is the atmospheric environment doing right now that wasn’t true an hour ago? What conditions may begin to materialize over the next thirty minutes if the trend holds? TitanTrack carries thousands of distinct storytelling possibilities on any given chase day, so no two chases ever sound exactly the same.

It also navigates uncertainty the same way any storm chaser might. The system goes quiet when the science is quiet, and it speaks up when something genuinely changes. We are teaching you to filter out the noise and identify the signals that matter most, a valuable skill in a world where information is constantly flowing.

Why this matters

Live storm chase broadcasts have followed roughly the same template for over a decade. A windshield camera. Voices that may or may not be exceptionally loud. A static map in the corner, perhaps. These are fine formats for watching storms as they happen — but we wanted to try something different.

While the tech around the chases has changed, the broadcasts have not. We are delivering a level of atmospheric insight that has quite literally never been attempted in a live broadcast, not because the technology was unavailable, but because nobody had built it. Think of it like a “StatCast” version of storm chasing — if that sounds interesting, this is probably something you’ll really find compelling.

By the end of a season of chases with us, you should know how to read a radar, recognize the setups that produce tornadoes, hear what a meteorologist hears in a forecast, and feel calmer (not more panicked) the next time severe weather shows up in your own forecast. That transformation is the entire point. We aren’t just chasing the storm. We are helping you decode it at the speed of the chase.

That knowledge you learn will spread and create safer communities in the future…we hope.

Out of beta. Into the season.

We have quietly run TitanTrack on six live broadcasts already this 2026 season. It works. So we are done calling it a beta and giving it the introduction it deserves.

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The next time we go live, sit down and watch. By the time you stand up, the next storm coming your way will look a little less mysterious, and you will be a little more ready for it.

That has always been our goal for nearly twenty years. Now our live streams match that promise.

We will see you on the next chase, which should be Saturday!

But, as we’ve been talking about for what feels like forever, that pattern is short-lived as we’re in a transition to what will become the dominant pattern through late May and much of June. And if you are a severe weather chaser like me, it looks busy.

1. Current Situation

Currently a large ridge of high pressure is sitting over my house here in New Mexico right now.

This won’t last forever though, as this high weakens and shifts south over the next few days, allowing modest flow to arrive over pretty meager moisture by late this week.

By the weekend, a trough will be entering the picture to the west with some subtropical flow over Texas and Oklahoma. While I suspect we’ll have daily risks of severe weather this week, this will bring the first ‘more serious’ looking day of this late May run. I’m not thinking big tornado event, but hailers seem pretty likely.

2. Then Next Week…

As we move into next week, one thing is becoming clear on models: consistent SW flow aloft, increasing moisture with time, and what will be a steady drumbeat of severe weather setups over the Plains for a week or two…at least.

The nature of the flow suggests that this will be a day-to-day mesoscale type of situation, where large areas aren’t favored for major severe weather, but things could come together in small regions to allow for significant severe weather. Where? I couldn’t tell you at this range…but that’s what this pattern looks like to me.

I’m seeing some subtleties in the surface patterns too, with stalled fronts, drylines, and more appearing depending on the day and the model's run. I don’t want to oversell late month: I don’t see a large-scale regional outbreak type of event on the horizon just yet — but I do think a lot of people will experience severe weather the last 15 days or so of this month.

For storm chasers like me, this is about as favorable a pattern for daily active severe weather as you could imagine for late month. For most of you, this is a good reminder to clean out those storm shelters if you haven’t done so recently, and to replace the batteries in your weather radio.

Yes, there will be severe weather — but it’s May. You know the drill if you’ve been on the Plains long enough. There’s no reason to panic, and there’s no reason to fall into hype doom loops from social media.

Stay tuned, we’ll have a lot more on this pattern in the coming days.

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1. Saturday then Sunday

A dryline sets up today with only modest upper-level support. Convergence in the dryline zone and just enough moisture could squeeze out a few storms that move east and south. Could. The atmosphere isn’t making any promises.

The catch is a familiar one. Right off the dryline, the low-level environment is dry, which means high cloud bases early on. By the time storms push far enough east into better moisture, the cap is likely strengthening. That leaves a pretty narrow window for anything significant, and an even narrower one for a tornado. Large hail is the headliner again today, with damaging winds as a secondary threat.

On Sunday, storms will be more numerous and geographically shunted further south. Hail and damaging winds will be the primary threats with these storms, only a very low tornado threat is expected and only if a dominant supercell can get going into the evening hours.

2. The Rest of May Looks Like June

The big story emerging for the rest of the season is how the jet stream is set to radically change and weaken about a month early, with a more summertime pattern setting up. This will mean less wind shear for storms but possibly more energy. As a storm chaser, the high CAPE/low shear days are far preferable to low CAPE/high shear days. The pattern is telling a pretty consistent story to what we’ve experienced much of the last week: tornado risks on the lower side, but not zero — with hail being the primary threat.

Starting off, early this week, a trough in the east and ridge in the west is the idealized “you don’t get severe weather anywhere” pattern. As moisture from the gulf stays locked up and air aloft sinks, the Plains will be rather quiet until later in the week.

By late week/the weekend A low will shift the high just a little east, allowing for some meager energy to work its way over the Plains. Since there won’t be a lot of moisture around with this round, expect that round to look a lot like this round with just enough moisture for big severe storms and just enough shear for supercells. But that should be the extent of it.

As we move into the last half of May, ridging will be dominant across the southern U.S. — the question is going to be what the jet stream can manage to do. While there will be a lot of jet energy north, the moisture will be pretty limited. This looks like a classic pattern where subtle/small shortwaves will be the drivers of storm activity, with day to day variability based on the results of the day before. Lines may lay out boundaries for new storms to form on the next day, and generally chaotic surface patterns will emerge. Eventually, we should have a closed low of some sort make its way out, the ensembles are trying to edge in that direction.

I’m not seeing a clear signal for BIG severe weather in late May, just a continued steady drumbeat which resembles this week. A few days on, a few days off. No major outbreaks, lots of mesoscale forecasting needed and gradually improving moisture through the end of the month to help make setups more volatile.

1. A Busy Day From Start to Finish

A lot is happening today, and it’s already underway. Elevated supercells are firing across western north Texas this morning, and they’re not messing around.

Strong deep-layer shear and an ejecting mid-level shortwave are fueling organized storms that will continue spreading east-northeast through north Texas and into southern Oklahoma.

Large to very large hail is the main threat through the morning. As these storms cross the warm front and tap into deeper moisture and instability across Arkansas and the Ozarks this afternoon, expect them to cluster up with a growing damaging wind threat.

The afternoon is where things escalate. New surface-based storms are expected to fire near the triple point from north-central Texas toward the ArkLaTex, and the environment waiting for them is very potent. We’re talking 4000+ J/kg of MLCAPE with 50 to 60+ knot deep-layer shear and steep mid-level lapse rates.

That’s the kind of atmosphere that produces very large to giant hail, two to four inches or more, with the strongest supercells. A tornado threat exists as well, though low-level shear isn’t screaming, so it’s more of an “any supercell that gets its act together could produce” situation rather than a high-end tornado setup.

Further east across the lower Mississippi Valley and Mid-South, the atmosphere is trying to recover from overnight convection.

A boundary left behind should lift north through the day, and as instability rebuilds, multiple rounds of supercells and multicell clusters look likely by evening. Large hail, widespread damaging winds, and a few tornadoes are all on the table across that region. The Tennessee Valley gets less instability to work with but isn’t completely off the hook by late afternoon.

Busy day from Texas to the Mid-South. Stay weather aware, especially this afternoon into tonight.

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The Setup

A warm front will orient northwest to southeast across central and southeast Oklahoma. Storms should fire along it in the mid-to-late afternoon hours and go supercellular quickly. Giant hail and tornadoes are both real threats, driven by northwest flow aloft, strong low-level shear, and plenty of instability.

Moisture should pool along and near the warm front, which does two important things: it lowers cloud bases and adds extra instability compared to the ambient environment around it. Both of those factors favor tornado development. Expect several storms to fire in this regime, though they may become increasingly crowded and higher-precipitation as the day wears on. That transition from discrete supercells to messier storm mode is going to be the key forecast question.

The Chase Reality

The setup is one thing. Actually chasing it is another.

First, the terrain. I don’t know if you know this, but Oklahoma becomes a completely different animal once you cross I-35 heading east and south. The wide-open Plains give way to hills and trees that block your view, limit your escape routes, and turn storm positioning into a guessing game. Southeast Oklahoma is not where any chaser wants to be navigating a tornadic supercell.

Second, it’s a weekend. On a bigger risk. In Oklahoma. Chaser convergence is going to be real today. Every county road will have vehicles on it, and keeping up with cells becomes that much more difficult when you’re sharing the road with half the chasing community. It’s not that more people interested in weather is a bad thing. It’s just a logistical reality that anyone who chases in Oklahoma can attest to.

The Plan

Get out early. Stay flexible. Let the atmosphere show its hand before committing. We’ll have the live stream up and be reporting from the field sometime just after lunch. The environment supports a significant severe weather day. How the chase plays out is a separate question.

See you out there.

1. This Afternoon

SO YOU’RE SAYING THERE’S A CHANCE?

Yes. Sort of. Kind of. If you squint.

Moisture is returning north over the next day with a weak dryline pattern setting up across the Panhandles. This isn’t the kind of moisture that keeps me up at night. But there might be just enough to squeeze out a couple of higher-based storms if localized dryline convergence and mixing can muscle past a strong cap.

If something does fire, hail and maybe damaging winds would be the threats. Marginal in every sense of the word. This is the atmosphere doing the bare minimum and seeing if anyone notices.

Today on the social media profiles, I nerded out on why these setups struggle in regard to tomorrow, but it also applies to today. When 850mb winds blow hot and dry from the west and the dryline orients southwest to northeast, updrafts have to fight through a wall of dry air just to exist. The storms that do try tend to look like pencil-thin towers clawing for survival before the cap wins by sunset. It’s not impossible. It’s just not a setup that gets me reaching for my car keys.

2. Tomorrow Looks Like Last Week

I promise this isn’t a copy and paste from last week. I totally didn’t. But Mother Nature absolutely did.

Thursday’s setup is basically last Friday’s forecast wearing a different hat. Dryline across Oklahoma and Texas, cold front pushing south through the Central Plains. Storms will fire along the front from southeast Nebraska into eastern Kansas. That’s a lock. Big hail and damaging winds are the sure bets there.

But here’s where Thursday gets interesting, and where it separates from Wednesday by a mile. The ingredients along the dryline are high-end. If a storm can fire off that boundary, it would be very isolated in an environment that favors tornadoes, giant hail, and damaging winds. The SPC has introduced a 2% CIG 1 hatch risk, basically meaning tornadoes aren’t expected but if one were to happen it’d probably be strong. I’ve been waiting my whole life for that kind of an outlook.

The problem though? Most models remain dry on the dryline. The cap is weak at peak heating, sitting right on a knife’s edge, but weak and gone are two very different things. The jet stream energy is once again tracking further north, which sounds familiar because we watched this exact movie last Friday. Storms struggled to fire on the dryline that day while the cold front did all the work.

The question I’m asking myself is whether it’s worth the drive east. Eight or nine hours in a car is a big commitment for a dryline that might not fire. The cold front will produce regardless, but that’s not the kind of day that justifies the gas money and time off of work. But if that dryline fires…

Most likely scenario: a rerun of last week. Storms struggle on the dryline, the cold front puts on the show, and it’s a very active severe weather day that isn’t necessarily a great chase day. But with ingredients this good sitting behind a cap this thin, I’m not ruling anything out yet.

Friday could bring additional storms, but odds favor the front sweeping through and pushing the action east of our chase range.

Stay tuned. Maybe Mother Nature could finally surprise us and write a new script this time.

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3. The Weekend

We’re going to be out this weekend it seems in Oklahoma/S Kansas and even Texas. Another system approaches from the west with a more southerly track, which should allow for more of a traditional severe weather threat to materialize. I’ll try to bring you another newsletter Friday with more details on those risks.

1)Groundhog Day for Storms

I’ll be honest. My biggest debate this morning wasn’t the target area. It was whether I should just copy and paste yesterday’s forecast, add “but a little further east,” and hit publish.

Instead, let me put some actual effort into this.

Morning soundings confirmed what we already suspected: steep lapse rates aloft, 7.5 to 8 degrees per kilometer in the 700-500mb layer, sitting on top of a very moist return-flow airmass. That’s an angry atmosphere, and it’s going to go off.

Round one starts early. Storms will develop near the dryline by mid-afternoon and go supercellular out of the gate. The stronger updrafts will be capable of large to very large hail initially, with all hazards coming into play as storms mature. This is the window where individual cells are most impressive and most dangerous.

Round two fires in the afternoon as additional storms join the party. Here’s where the forecast gets familiar: those new storms will favor clustering and upscale growth, likely merging into bands and linear segments by evening. The hodographs are partly to blame. Forecast soundings show somewhat limited low-level wind profiles with a veer-back-veer signature, which is the atmosphere’s way of nudging storms toward messy mode rather than keeping them discrete.

The tornado question is the same one it’s been all week: storm mode. The threat is there and it’s elevated, not zero. Residual outflow from overnight convection pushing into the Ozarks could enhance low-level shear later today, which would be a boost. But whether we see tornadoes largely depends on whether storms can maintain supercell structure before the inevitable march toward linear chaos.

The sure bets remain the same. Large hail with early supercells, damaging winds as things organize, and a long afternoon-into-evening event that demands attention if you’re in the path.

If yesterday’s forecast sounded a lot like this, that’s because the atmosphere is running the same playbook with a slight geographic shift. Sometimes the sky isn’t that creative either.