Saturday, April 28, 2012

Midwest Outlined in 4-8 Day Severe Weather Outlook

A 4-8 day outlook has been issued for severe weather, indicating that the area shaded has at least a 30% chance of experiencing severe weather within 25 miles of any point. This is valid for May 2. My area is included in this, so expect a low of posts concerning it, adding to the fact that it is the first big event in a little while.
Let's take a look at a few maps for the event. Here is the instability forecast for May 2. All maps are valid at 7:00 PM CDT May 2nd.

Here is the instability forecast. You can see very large amounts of instability located mainly in western Oklahoma, but also back towards the area outlined in the Midwest and eastern Plains. You can see where the warm front cuts off by seeing where the instability ends in southern Wisconsin. However, that may be where the highest tornado potential is, as frontal boundaries are known to have tornado-enhancing characteristics with them.

Here is the shearing forecast for 7:00 PM CDT. The highest shearing looks to be in Wisconsin, indicating that those areas would have better tornado potential. However, considering that the instability is located farther south, they do not exactly match up. We will have to see what evolves with this situation.

Finally, the precipitation forecast for 7:00 PM CDT indicates that a mesoscale convective system (MCS) of showers and thunderstorms will be ongoing across southern Wisconsin. Some single celled storms could evolve to the south of this MCS, but that remains to be seen.

More to come.
Andrew

5 comments:

ERN WX said...

I am thinking this may march on t=east to the coast. I think it would be great if we can all get a little storm chasing in. If I can't i'll move to Kansas or Oklahoma. They were nice when i was in that area last. Supercells there are some of the best on earth. In the east they are just not the same. I knew the second you saw the SPC outlook, you would have an informative post out, Andrew. Once again, you prove that this si the BEST weather site. And also everyone. You won't be able to get so many FREE model links anywhere else.... unless you work as a meteorologist for a group. And you will have to work pretty hard to do that.

Anonymous said...

wisconsins been mentioned in alot of these im in kenosha please keep us all updated

Anonymous said...

so how hard do you think michigan will be hit? Any tornades?

storm chaser said...

hail storms were on the prowl today.

ERN WX said...

Thoughts on the potential severe weather outbreak for this week. Basically, I have drawn a line on east from where the SPC has the slight risk out for day3. So, even though the SPC removed their area from yesterday (day5; day4 today)expect a slight risk out for basically the same area, in tomorrow's outlook (day3). Just thoughts on the matter. I expect areas from the Midwest all the way to the coast to see strong/severe storms.