Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Early Next Week May Get Interesting

Indications are showing up on the GFS that Monday of next week may get very interesting. Here's why.
As I have been preaching, there is a severe weather risk for Saturday of this upcoming weekend. However, this comes as a major storm system is still in the Rockies mountains. On Monday, this strong storm system will eject east and likely make a big splash, weather wise.

Here's the jet stream forecast for hour 138, or Monday at about 1:00 AM CDT. At that point, the system will be moving east, and the jet stream at 300mb will be screaming along at over 100 knots- a strength usually seen with the worse side of the tornado outbreaks spectrum.
The system does appear to be positively tilted, meaning not as much instability will be present as there could be. However, considering the same system will still be positively tilted this Saturday and risks have already been put out, it may or may not be a substantial player in this situation.

Here's the instability forecast for hour 138- the same timeframe as the image above. At this point, instability is mainly confined to south Texas, where values over 2500 j/kg reside. Farther north, instability as high as 1500 j/kg appears in the works. Now, if there was more instability this situation could get much more intense. However, with limited instability, it won't be devastating.

This is surface to 500mb shear, which is commonly used as an indicator for tornadoes. In this image, we see shearing values above 80 knots, which honestly is a pretty high value. These values are typically reserved for more intense tornadoes. However, with lower instability than what is sufficient, tornadoes that may form may not be as strong as they 'could be'.

6 hour precipitation charts reflect how intense things could get in west Missouri and northeast Oklahoma for this event. These would be serious thunderstorms judging by shear, instability and precipitation as seen above. Below is the area I think people should be 'on watch' for this event.

-Andrew

2 comments:

ERN WX said...

It even shows the potential for decent rain. My area could use it but I fear it is too little too late.

ERN WX said...

I completely agree with you, Andrew. Great, informative article!!! Thank you!!!!!!!!