What happened? How Two Severe WX Setups Underperformed Expectations

A postmortem from two chase events earlier this month.

Both October 10 and October 12 saw big severe weather risks introduced over the Great Plains. On both days, the possibility of long-tracked, strong tornadoes was discussed and on both days that threat largely failed to materialize (at least in the highest outlook areas!).

What happened?

I personally didn’t chase either day — though I don’t fault anyone for chasing — the setups didn’t look like ones that’d be worth the 8-hour drive either day for me. I should say with that statement that I tend to not storm chase at night on purpose because I’m really not a big fan of it personally.

I saw three things that kept me at home.

First, I didn’t like the projected storm modes in the primary target either day.

Second, the thermodynamics on Tuesday did not look favorable at all in the primary target with a significant near-surface stable layer forecast on models (and later verified on soundings). There was a secondary target that became apparent on Tuesday morning but storms largely did not organize…