STATUS: IOP

The final VORTEX-SE IOP for the Spring 2016 campaign will begin Wed 27 April.  Current guidance suggests the possibility for HP supercells and/or a QLCS system Wednesday evening or night.  We will have a science planning meeting at UAH on Wed morning or midday.  The time of this meeting will be decided in the usual 1 PM conference call on Tue 26 April and will be posted on this blog as well.

There should be a continuing period of occasionally sufficient mid- and upper-tropospheric flow for supercells, and occasionally augmented low-level flow and shear, as well as CAPE, between the Wednesday event and ~ Sunday 1 May.  Thereafter, it looks like general ridging in the central US and a deepening trough to the east will bring cooler, drier continental air into the VORTEX-SE domain.  So this IOP will probably involved 2-3 observing periods.

(Dates corrected… thanks to the observant VORTEX-SE fan in Kansas.)