[Dustin Wilcox]

This question completely depends on the time of year, during the transition Months when strong neg tilted troughs come crashing into the plains CAPE and instability is certainly not required to be very impressive due to the much more favorable wind profile i.e. wind shear.* However during the Summer when troughs are unable to dig into the plains states and we are lucky to see a settle wave CAPE and instability becomes the saving grace as the wind profile certainly lack the more favorable shear seen with the strong troughs.* My personal favorite and most likely get you a good Tornado are the events that overlap conditions from both seasons these setups are VERY limited I would say your lucky to get a handful of them each year, good example is March 28th this year we had a STRONG trough with large amounts of wind shear, during peak heating instability became quite unseasonably high with CAPES close to 4000j/kg, this day was quite impressive I alone witnessed 5 tornadoes one over half mile wide, however storm motions were quite unfavorable, a similar scenario unfolded on April 21st when I witnessed a strong tornado in Tulia TX, strong trough with decent instability, its these days with the best of both worlds that are quickly making April my favorite Month to chase.* Since these setups are limited often you have to settle for other setups, to me it depends on what your looking for as to what conditions I favor.* If I am looking for tornadoes (which is usually the case) the early high wind shear low instability setups seem to produce more then the extreme instability and low shear events of the summer, although during the early season your often chasing un-photogenic fast moving storms, while the summer HP beasts are often slow moving and quite photogenic.