Ah see! The entire high plains! This is my kingdom! As far as the eye can see. Welcome back. Um I'm
Michael by the way. uh. Youtube was gracious enough to come all the way down here and tape this,
so thank you youtube. Some of you may remember that i said 2020 might be
particularly good for storm chasing, and i have to apologize. That just didn't happen.
We are all just shocked. uh. Everything looked like it would be a banner year just like 1990.
This is the worst! It's true, all signs pointed to 2020 being a 1990-like year. There were so many
similarities over the winter and spring of 2020. It actually did play out much like 1990. Each year
at the opening of these videos I like to mention that this is a fun and academic exercise, and don't
let me fool you here, I'm not trying to make last year's bad forecast look like i was still right.
Tornado prediction is the goal, and sometimes this is going to be wrong, sometimes very wrong.
Predicting climate patterns months ahead of time that may lead to more or less tornado activity in
a given region is almost impossible. However the types of patterns that can lead to more
supercell thunderstorms, the kind that can sometimes produce tornadoes, Isn't as hard. As with
2020 there were in fact lots of storm chasing days with beautiful results. There were more setups for
me to storm chase in 2020 than average. Yet most of these systems did not lead to that final result.
Meanwhile the southern us way over-performed expectations. But on to 2021. Onwards and upwards.
Sometimes you need a fresh start. A clean slate. Nature's reset. Like being in a witness protection program.
Now some of my audience might be storm chasers, or people that just follow
major weather events live on their screens. Others might have some anxiety or interest in
who might be under the gun this year and how much. So I'll do my best to address all of that.
And yeah, I'm doing a parody every year. Sorry, not sorry. NO GOD PLEASE NO. There are many reasons why
2020 failed from a storm chasing standpoint, but the background state and overall mode should have
made for a more plane-centric year than we got. By January, 2018 appeared likely to be a low tornado
year, and 2019 was to be an active one and both predictions came true. Somehow in 2020 a few minor
details managed to completely flip this forecast. For instance not getting enough moisture collected
up under the trough is less than ideal. That's what she said! Having a few details not quite pan out
is just what happens sometimes, but hey 2020 didn't turn out well for anything, so i guess none of us
should be surprised! And it's why this forecast for 2021 could just as easily be wrong--due to details
we won't see unfold for months. The storm chasing hobby, admittedly, is a male dominated meet up
to mostly watch rain. I guess that makes it a shower for guys. It's a guy shower. An hours
long shower with guys. My two favorite things to watch over the winter are the state of the ENSO
that's el nino or la nina, and how much significant drought we have over the southwestern plains.
La Nina or cold ocean surface temperatures off the coast of South America can influence how weather
systems throughout winter and spring enter north america on average. Moderate or strong La Ninas
mean higher tornado counts particularly focused over the southern united states. Neutral and El
Nino states on the other hand tend to move tornado counts lower but also favoring more storms further
west on the high plains. Excessive drought, on the other hand, especially in areas like west Texas and
eastern New Mexico can lead to a strong EML. Too hot and to dry means blue sky. 2021 does have a
major drought problem but it's also a moderately strong La Nina. Welcome to Southwest Texas. The
extreme southwestern fringes of high plains in the united states are called the EML source region. Now
obviously this doesn't look like plains but in between these mountains are level areas.
collectively this area is hot. It's very dry and it's at a pretty high altitude. In the early spring
temperatures begin to reach up into the 90sF in this area and mid-level winds start to drag this
hot dry air over the warm moist plains in some severe weather setups. That elevated mixed layer,
or cap, is sometimes responsible for suppressing storms from forming entirely
or can lead to leaving a lid on storms so that they can't form until later in the afternoon
during peak heating and one of those cases can lead to more violent storms and more tornadoes.
On the other hand, it can keep storms from forming entirely, sometimes for months on en. The stronger
your cap or elevated mix layer the more storms get suppressed throughout the season. I am totally
alone right now with only my thoughts. But if this part of the United States is especially wet during
the winter or has experienced colder weather than usual that can lead to a weak cap. But in this case
this area of the plains and the intermountain west are experiencing extreme and exceptional drought.
That can lead to a much hotter much drier elevated mix layer, so unfortunately that might mean fewer
storms for this season. La Ninas can be a little bit unpredictable. Sometimes they can further dry
this area of the plains out more, or it can lead to more storm systems that weaken this elevated
mix layer. But if i was a betting person I'd say we're gonna have a very strong cap this year
and a very strong cap probably means a week severe weather season and a below average tornado season
for the high plains. Not all La Ninas are the same. A first-year Nina seems to affect severe weather
a bit differently than a second year La Nina when they happen to be back to back. Youtube is
the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can make a video about any subject. So you know you're getting
the best possible information. Let's look at the past years where we were dealing with this very
same thing. Here are all the first year La Nina springs that featured severe drought out west
Okay it appears we have a problem here. Two analogs are really nothing to work with here. Besides that
1955 and 1989 had pretty wildly different outcomes but i can also loosely add 1965 which had some
moderate drought in some key places. 1989 was quite inactive outside of an outbreak in the Carolinas
and some late season action in Texas. Outside of June which is the hardest part of the spring to
make a good guess, 1989 was an inactive below average spring for tornadoes but not the worst
either. 1989 spares the deep south which as you'll see is a good thing. 1955 featured an active April
amd May on the plains but also somewhat active in the deep south. May 1955 was the year of the famous
F5 Udall tornado, but 1955 is a pretty old analog and doesn't help us much as climate changes since
1955 make it a tough sell. 1965 is a little newer this was an incredible tornado year with a hyper
active midwest. For example, the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak over the great lakes and a highly active
May and June over the entire plains. Needless to say a repeat of 1965 would be rather scary for
just about everyone. But let's inspect the drought a little better. While indeed these areas in the
western high plains and foothills near the rockies are in drought, for the most part this is longer
term drought, recently there have been several major snow events in southwest Texas for example
which is actually pretty rare. In over a hundred years of records this has only happened a few
times. Because drought doesn't appear at the moment to be as big of a factor, We actually uncover quite
a few more examples 2011 2008 1999 1974 1971 join 1955 1965 and 1989. Oh my god it's happening
everybody stay calm! And now here's where things start to take an especially dark tone. All told
these analogs contain both super outbreaks as well as Moore, Oklahoma 99. Joplin and El Reno 2011
Louisiana's only F5, South Dakota's only F5. 2008 was the most active year on record (Tied-ish with 2011) containing
the Super Tuesday Outbreak and a record number of tornadoes in Kansas. bear in mind that drought
in the west is not as affective to the Midwest and deep south. So even if action on the plains
is suppressed this is all pretty bad news for the rest of the country, especially the Ohio valley and
deep south. This is not something you like to see if this analog set is correct so far the ceiling
for a very bad year in 2021 is as high as it goes. Let me show you why these years were so dangerous
I can blend these analog springs into an anomaly map for the spring months and see if there's some
common themes. The upper level low pressure in the west combined with the flattened high
over the gulf are the most important and common features throughout these springs which means
a strong more zonal flow aloft over the deep south a common feature among moderately strong
first-year ninas is a strong north pacific upper level high that sets everything else into motion
having these conditions over and over throughout the spring probably means high twister counts
high chances for a major outbreak and this is exactly the pattern that resulted in both super
outbreaks in 1974 and 2011 as well as the super tuesday outbreak in 2008 and the palm sunday
outbreak in 1965. webster's dictionary defines twister as to utter a succession
of short or small tremulous sounds as a bird i'm going to get a bit more sophisticated
here and check all other teleconnections and also include other moderate ninas
that were second or third year in a row then compare them to 2021 and find the best matches
teleconnections are an alphabet soup of names of weather patterns that exist over certain parts
of the globe other than the pdo i don't give as much credit to these others unless there's some
sort of unifying pattern that catches my eye these second ninjas introduce us to 2012 2009
1975 and 76 1956 and 1957. i can already tell something is up with this because this batch
of other years had very different outcomes for when it came to tornadoes from that of the other
batch but most of them do contain a few big days in the midwest and south 1976 a third year nina
having a spring more like the deadly batch 2012 had an early spring planes outbreak while 1956
like 65 had legendary days in the midwest when it comes to these second ninas while
certainly far from completely quiet storm chasing overall would be a bit more on the boring side
while tornado counts overall tended to be a bit lower and less destructive for the deep south and
midwest and sure enough the teleconnections for the current year nina in winter of 2021
match better to the more deadly batch than the rest of these well well well how the turn tables
by eyeballing these winter teleconnections i can pick the best possible matches 1955 1965 1971
and 2011. and yes while these four years were quite deadly they didn't all play out exactly the
same way with 2011 the april 27 outbreak weighs extremely heavy here many lives were lost history
was made and many places in the south would never be the same it's only been a decade but we can't
rule out something terrible happening this year my hope is that if you live in the ohio valley south
to the gulf coast you take any strong language regarding a tornado event from february and
into the spring very seriously and yes february is included tornado season begins early in the
deep south and while 2008 another analog should serve as a great example of a february outbreak
another top analog 1971 also featured a horrible tornado outbreak in louisiana and mississippi
also in february 1955 was a bit of an exception when it comes to dixie alley tornadoes it was much
quieter in the south but take that with a grain of salt how tornadoes and storm damage were reported
in the south were far different than even just a couple of decades later the truth is it could
have been a bad year and there's a chance reports slipped through the cracks or perhaps this is a
sliver of hope that the deep south can escape the type of tornado year 2021 appears to be teeing up
as far as planes chasing are concerned 1955 and 1965 would have been banner years much like 2008
all four years feature some sort of major tornado event or outbreak on the i-35 and i-44 corridors
as well interstate 35 serves as an incidental western limit to above average tornado activity
in la nina years as a storm chaser i'm i'm optimistic because every day i get a little bit
more desperate all four years feature f5 tornadoes and while i don't like using the word overdue here
certainly it feels like 2021 may feature the first ef-5 in quite a while in fact if we make
it through this year without one it will be a new record 2011 had many joplin el reno huntsville
and more february 1971 louisiana's worst tornado another f5 1955 as mentioned had udall and 1965
featured a northern plains outbreak with south dakota's only f5 going four for four on f or ef5
tornadoes and these analogs should tell you 2021 probably isn't messing around of these four main
analog years 1965 would have been the best one for storm chasing with 1955 a close second 2011 and
1971 would be both more dangerous for the southern us but also less interesting overall for storm
chasing looking at long range forecast tools i can compare what models think might happen this spring
to how my analogs performed one thing is clearly showing up between all of them and the analogs a
north pacific high on average this coupled with a lot of western troughing and an elongated
high pressure over the gulf coast these are all signs of an active dixie alley side note i've
seen some musings from down south this winter like we haven't had this much snow since 2011.
i'm not superstitious but i am a little stitious so here's my forecast for 2021. every bit is
likely to fail as my past three predictions going two for three so far is no reason to think i might
end up 50 50 after doing this for a few years but specifically i'm sounding the alarm for the deep
south in ohio valley i'm just passing the message along it's not like you'd arrest the guy for just
passing drugs from one guy to another i'm going all in here and if i'm wrong that's wonderful news
i'd rather be wrong than right this time if there was a kind of year where really terrible horrible
things can go very badly for the deep south and the i-35 corridor from february to may this would
be that kind of year some possible failure modes for this forecast the high planes are about 50
50 in these nina years so it's just as likely to be active or inactive on the planes the la nina
could take an early spring break and it isn't one of the strongest nina's we've seen in some
of these analog years and that could put us more along the lines of the weaker second ninas that
resulted in quieter seasons in the upper right and in the description i've linked to my tornado
myth busting video which includes a wealth of very relevant tornado safety topics many of which call
out the deep south of the us specifically we don't want another 2011 and we don't have to so please
if you haven't watched it do so now is a great time to brush up ahead of what could be a major
year once again all of this is for fun while it's based on some truth and there appears to be some
merit to doing these a lot of this information is just my intuition and some pattern recognition
take it with a grain of salt and let's all hope 2021 doesn't turn into a tornado dumpster fire
i'd much rather see them in the high plains and away from cities so keep your fingers crossed
i will be too thanks for watching let me know what your predictions are in the comments and
as usual i'll provide a status update with some sub-seasonal forecasting in early may so be sure
to subscribe so you can see that in my channel i cover my experiences with severe weather astronomy
the outdoors and much more have a look around my channel page and see if any of that interests you
here's to a safe and fun season and until the next one i'll see you out there do i need this
video to be liked absolutely not i like when this video is liked i enjoy having this video liked
it has to be liked it's not a compulsive need for it to be liked like my need for it to be praised