The HRRR seems to have a much better handle on conditions today than it did last week. I’d say the 09z (4am) run’s forecasted precipitation for 6am CT matches pretty well with the radar image at 6am.

In keeping with Matt’s thinking, I’m combining what I saw in the NAM and the HRRR with a slight tweak based on GFS. I’m leaning about 30 miles north of where he is for a starting point, though. As I said yesterday, around Stafford to somewhere in northern Stafford county. HRRR, RUC and a merge of the forecast soundings (GFS and NAM) for the Lyons & Great Bend areas make the area around the intersections between the Stafford, Reno, Rice and Barton county lines my area of interest in the 4-8pm time frame.

It has been a while since I’ve done a triple-point play…usually like the dry line better. But there’s something about the setup that’s telling me I should hunt the triple point this time.

Still quite a few potential issues with this setup…models are still about 50-80 miles apart on the larger risk areas. They’re coming into better agreement than a week ago, though.

THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT ANY STORMS THAT FIRE DOWN THE DRYLINE WILL QUICKLY GO SEVERE. ANY DISCRETE STORMS WILL HAVE A GOOD CHANCE TO PRODUCE TORNADOES WITH SOME LONG LIVED TORNADOES POSSIBLE.

That’s pretty strong wording from NWS ICT. I haven’t had time to watch this event for the previous several days like I usually would have, but for areas south of US 54 and east of I-35, it’s going to be a very interesting afternoon.

My biggest surprise is the prediction that storms may begin firing in the Wichita vicinity or even northwest of us in the 1-3pm time frame. That illustrates the strength of this system, because that time frame is several hours before peak heating.

Matt emailed me late last night and he’s available after class, so we’re going to be out and about. Initial plan is to not discount the storms in the Wichita area, so we can get some streaming video on the air on KWCH. I see the day evolving with us running along US 160, as Matt suggested last night. I will hedge toward remaining west of K99 and north of US 412, just because we can be a better warning resource in that area than points further east.

However, if it looks like the Iola/Chanute area may be under the gun just as these storms get really strong, I may head that way. Having to be up for work tomorrow at 1:30am will weigh heavily into that decision. I’m headed back to bed now to rest up a bit.

Fortunately, the higher chance for high-end severe weather is much further northeast, so the roads won’t be littered with chasers. Of course, in that area of the state, there tend to be a lot of yahoo “chasers” on the back roads. You give some, you get some, I guess. Maybe the risk of hail instead of tornadoes will keep them somewhat at bay.

Not really expecting much in the way of tornadoes, but looking for enough chance of hailers around sunset that it’s worth taking a few hour drive. The trip is as much to work the bugs out of the new setup as anything.

I haven’t looked at it in detail, but my feel is that overnight will bring us some borderline-severe hail in the Wichita area, off storms moving in from Oklahoma along with the front.

Tomorrow looks to me like a warm-front play. Those situations have been good to Matt and me in the past year – most of the activity we recorded last year was related to north-moving fronts. Some of the parameters look pretty impressive around Wichita in the mid to late afternoon – nothing like yesterday, but still nice, from a chasing point of view.

I am not planning to go into any more detail on the setup at this point – 20 minutes of glancing at a couple of models is just not enough for me to hang my hat on. I won’t be surprised to see us hanging around Wichita, give or take 50 miles, tomorrow.

Hopefully the models, especially the RUC, will have the same kind of handle on tomorrow they had on yesterday, as I don’t think Matt or I will have the time to do the detailed forecasting we did for yesterday’s event. Between the two of us, I know of at least 7 hours’ forecasting work over the weekend and yesterday that went into our decision-making process.

Speaking of which, a big thanks to ICT Lead Forecaster Brad Ketcham, who talked with us multiple times while home caring for a sick young’n. His forecast hints helped us verify out thinking and he was a big help during the heat of things yesterday afternoon, when we were trying to get in behind the tornado, fighting equipment problems, and outrunning a hail core. As with all these things, it takes a team effort to get it done safely.

Look for a brief post in the morning – with the apparently earlier start, I doubt I’ll have a lot of time for detail, but I’ll update on the target thinking, at least!

It’s not a lot of move from earlier this morning, but now the area lays about where I really expected it to be….maybe still a bit further south than I expected. 7am (12z) model runs aren’t quite done yet, so I’ll be interested to see if the low is out of position compared to where the models had predicted it. It was slightly off of the predictions earlier this morning, a position that would tend to favor the southward adjustment.

We’re just waiting to see where the cloud deck erodes now. Still a few hours from a firm targeting decision, but I know this much: I’m not going to play with the hordes in northeast Oklahoma. I’ll take our road network over theirs any day of the week. My instinct to stay close because of risk to the Metro is staying firmly in place. Best guess right now: I’ll be putting up with cell phone frustration along US 160 a good portion of the day. I’ll take that to US 166, though.

This will probably be the last discussion in any detail – lot to get taken care of before my data session with Matt at 11, and looks like we may be on the road a bit earlier. Look for updates on Twitter: @scott_roberts and follow the video on the Live Tracker (button at the bottom).

I will post an updated graphic from GRLevel3 sometime after the SPC outlook is issued, so you can see exactly where it sits. Sometimes the small map on their site is hard to peg exactly where the line is in relation to where you are.

The Slight, Moderate and High-Risk areas today are indicating only the number of storms expected. Anything that goes is expected to be severe…much of it high-end. Usually, the risk areas indicate forecasters’ best feel of both the change there will be storms and how intense they’ll be. Today it’s nothing more the % risk for any 25-mile circle to get whacked.

The red circle, marked HIGH, in the southeast corner of the image is the SPC high risk area. Very close to it, in orange, is the 30% tornado risk. Now look just southwest of Wichita. The light orange line closest to Wichita is the 15% risk of tornado line. The yellow line, next west, is the SPC Moderate Risk line.

Now the item of concern, IMO. The Purple line, marked SIG. That denotes the area in which SPC believes there is a “10% or greater probability of EF2 – EF5 tornadoes within 25 miles of a point.”

Also of concern, from a property damage potential standpoint: the light green line next to the west – 45% probability of hail. And though I don’t show it on this view, the area is hatched on the SPC site, meaning a “10% or greater probability of hail 2″ or larger within 25 miles of a point.”

So, in spite of the high risk being moved to our southeast, I think it’s premature to let out our collective breath. The hazards if something goes today are in the significant category.

I expect to see the High risk area come back just a bit to the west. But from the standpoint of chasing in the metro area and the population impact of the worst weather, I’m liking where it is a little better than where I thought it would be. The high-risk bullseye will distract many of the uninformed people who will clog the roads and make it hard for those of us whose job is to inform others of the events in real-time to do what we do. The casual chasers will focus on the high risk and leave us alone. That leaves the untrained “chasers” – called a number of other derogatory names by many – the people for whom “Twister” was a training film. ‘Nuff said. I still expect the roads to be a zoo, but with the high-risk bullseye to our southeast, we’ll lose some of the gridlock.

I’m not making any fine-tuning decisions on my targeting until the 0z (7am) models are out, but I will say my thinking hasn’t changed a lot concerning where and how we’ll approach it. We may not get on the storm of the day…but if it looks to me like storms will directly threaten Wichita, I’ll defer to staying in the metro. It’s a day when I take my warning responsibility – and if something happens, my responsibility to help – more seriously than getting the greatest video. There are a lot of days those two motivations are competing in me, but today it’s a no-brainer for me.

Time to work so I can have the deck clear by 11 for an in-depth discussion with Matt. I may post a short update about 7:30 or 8, otherwise the next one will likely come as we get ready to roll – right now we’re planning on being in the field by 2:30-3pm.