It's getting close ... the "not-so-specific" departure date of our storm chasing trip. The earliest we could leave this was the morning of May 9th (this morning) as that was when I got off work before vacation time. Initially we were hoping to leave but the overall weather pattern isn't exactly cooperating for storm chasers (cooperating if you don't like storms!).

The pattern over this week and beginning next week does not look favourable for any sort of severe weather outbreak in favourable chase territory. However, after looking through the ensembles and long range models, there are hints that the later half of May could still hold some eventful days. Nothing jumps out and screams "tornado outbreak" which, for a chaser, is what you hope for but that doesn't mean there won't be any storms to chase.

This extended period of boring weather has actually worked slightly in our favour: it's given us a little extra time to get our finishing touches done on the hail guards as well as iron out some internet and electronic issues. We're aiming to leave most likely the beginning of next week (week of May 13th) so we'll see how the patterns progress.

We will be heading back to Niagara to finish up the preps on the vehicle. Here is a preliminary picture of the hail guards:

The driver side hail guards (not including the trunk hail guard).

Once we get them done I'll take some proper pictures of the chase vehicle including the hail guards are interior set up. So here is hoping the pattern cooperates and we can get out to Tornado Alley and chase some supercells and hopefully find some tornadoes.