Monday, June 4, 2012

Weekend Severe Threat May Turn Significant for North Plains

The Storm Prediction Center has outlined two areas of severe weather for June 9th and 10th, for Days 6 (D6) and 7 (D7), respectively. It is somewhat uncommon to have risk areas outlined in the 4-8 day outlook, but more on the rare side for anything above Day 6 to be issued. That said, an SPC Day 6 and 7 risk areas means that there is an unusually high amount of confidence for this event. Let's take a look.

On June 9th, a strong low pressure system with central pressure of 996 millibars looks to shift east into the Northern Plains. Tight isobars indicate that the scene will be a windy one; not surprising with the presence of a strong cold front and low pressure system.
A warm front looks to be extending north into the US-Canada border, bringing temperatures to summer-like conditions across the Plains and Midwest regions. Out west, a dry line will be present from western Texas north into South Dakota. It is not common for a dry line to stretch so far north, so this looks to be an unusual event at hand. A cold front will be sweeping east from the Rockies to spark thunderstorms across the Dakotas and probably farther south as well. However, only the Dakotas look to have 3000+ j/kg of instability.

The HPC's Gridded Forecasts spread a swath of potential of severe weather from Texas to the US-Canada Border. There is a small pocket of 'Likely' severe weather in eastern portions of the Dakotas, mainly in North Dakota. Minnesota and Nebraska look to also be in the line of fire, with areas farther south and west receiving low end risks of severe weather potential.

I will be closely watching this situation for anything else, but the main concerns appear to be hail and damaging winds for now.

Andrew

5 comments:

Alice McDonald said...

Hi Andrew and All.
Is there any information about rain for NE Indiana? We were supposed to get an inch last Friday, we got 1/10 inch. I think they said before that was May 8, the last time we saw decent rain. The yard looked better last January.

Storm-Chaser Wx said...

well this is unfortunate for me, and it seems that it just had to be the perfect timing too, im going to be in wyoming during this event because i will be on a road trip. im leaving tommorow and the severe threat will be too far west of where i will be, then there isnt any other severe weather chances until day 6-7, I really hope that if anything happens, for you (andrew) to please take some video or photos of the possible supercells so that i can atleast see what i missed out on. it would be greatly appreciated if you did this for me, if anything happens. thank you very much and stay safe when you are chasing. GOOD LUCK!

Andrew said...

I can't say I'll be chasing on those days or for a while ( I'd like to have a better knowledge of storms before chasing). However, I'm sure that people who do chase will get some pretty spectacular pictures.

Andrew said...

Alice: A pattern in place should bring a cold front through much of the eastern US and associated storms.

Anonymous said...

With the SPC already on this there is something to watch. /