With the crazy morning out of the way, I've finally had a chance to glance over things in regards to Saturday. Out of the way, though, this morning. The accident is now closed; all legal issues wrapped up this morning, so that's FINALLY over and done with.
Second, the van. An unexpected surprise this morning lead me to take my van to the shop to get her checked out. The issue I had this morning seemed to have disappeared a couple hours later when I returned. A loud humming noise and several of the dash warning lights (brake, oil, check engine) came on and stayed on. I left the van and swapped vehicles for my court run, then returned home a couple hours later to see all the lights now off, but the humming remained. I drove it down to my local mechanic and the humming seemed to disappear. Restarting the van in front of the shop, nothing. I have doubts whether they will be able to replicate the issue or not, but seeing as I needed an oil change anyway (7000 miles on my last one), I figured I'd have them take a look at it anyway.
Assuming nothing serious is wrong (or if it is, can be fixed by tomorrow), I'm cautiously keeping my ears and eyes open for Saturday's setup. If you buy into the GFS, I'll be staying home watching a
Rockies game. If you believe the NAM, I'll be eating at Wendy's in Salina by noon. Both models are way out of sync with each other, which pending on how you look at it, could be good or bad. But its bad if you're a forecaster trying to determine which is the right one.
The GFS has the low and our target well north and east into Eastern Nebraska and Western Iowa. The NAM has things further south and west, giving a likely and much more feasable target near and just east of I-135/I-35 in Kansas. If the NAM starts to verify more and the GFS can start to come to terms with the NAM, I think I'm going to start leaning back into chasing on Saturday. Otherwise I'll sit this one out.
I haven't gone into specifics or details yet cause I want to wait another couple of runs before I start to make my target. With the diverence of the models so much, its hard to take stock in anything, let alone specifics on CAPE, moisture, shear, etc. While I do have concerns of the moisture being overdone and temps well into the 80s creating large spreads in temp and dewpoint, its something that could work out. The cap remains an issue, but could actually play into our favor if enough forcing from above moves overhead in the right areas. If this occurs, it'll limit the threat of everything exploding up and into a massive cluster of storms right away and may actually keep isolated supercells going well into the evening.
Its definately bears watching and will be a last second choice. I won't up my alert status til later this evening as I get a chance to see which model is going to take the helm. And of course, whether or not I have a ride will play a role, too.
