frostfern

Massive 960 mb Aleutian bomb gradually spinning itself out south of Alaska is the problem with the GFS OP. Maybe not all the ensemble members / other models are as bad. Please tell.

The ridge will eventually translate east. The problem is that's the most boring transition possible if you are interested in active weather. Warm air advection from the northwest is a drought pattern.

So this is what prompted the severe thunderstorm warning on Saturday. It was odd as there was a lot of thunder and quite a downpour, but hardly any wind at all IMBY. Also weird to see a SE to NW path.

We're talking about an increase in the UHI though. It's hard to tell how much of it corresponds to increased urban development and how much corresponds to other factors.

Boring blocking pattern ends with a super amplified +PNA ridge into the Yukon and downstream GL trough. Please tell me it's just the OP GFS.

It's possible to hit 60 with 0C 850 temps this time of year. Probably not in this moist pattern though. The flip side is it won't be freezing hard at night, so flowers will do well. Would be nice to avoid a hard freeze now that things are ahead of schedule. Still a long ways to go until we're out of the woods though.

Just got a nice heavy thunderstorm. Severe warning but nothing close to severe IMBY. Not a lot of wind. Rain came straight down. Just big drops. Water running along the road and grass looking soggy. Was worried the line of showers would be broken given how past systems panned out, but this line is sharing the wealth in terms of rainfall on this side of the state at least.

I'd prefer to get those kind of amounts since it's going to be dreary no matter what. It's a dry spring still up here.

Long range is really really boring though. Might as well live in Scotland. Just hope this blocking nonsense doesn't last into May. I'm afraid climate change is making boring blocking patterns more common just because the arctic is warming faster than the midlatitudes.

Have had three micro-cells drift overhead so far today... each cloudburst lasted approximately 6 minutes... yet deep puddles and water running along the sides of the roads after each one. These cells are very efficient rain producers. Comes in sideways too. South facing window just pounded with big drops. Not too much lightning though. Few scattered strikes but I didn't hear any thunder yet. The cells have been solidifying and producing more strikes as they move away to the northwest.

Very small cell just ripped hail for about 5 minutes. It was a little bit bigger than pea sized, but not quite dime size. Nice hour long period of gentle rain and occasional rolling thunder earlier this morning too. Saw some decent anvil crawlers.

EML is different from a typical cap in that it features steep lapse rates in the 700-500 hPa layer. 8C/km or greater in this layer usually evidence of an EML. It's good for severe weather because it gives the CAPE a low center of gravity, so parcels accelerate early.

Problem is it's the ECMWF too. I wouldn't call it "arctic", just snooze-fest crap where the warm front is close enough to cause clouds, but pushed south by easterlies from Canada.

GFS has gone back to the backdoor cold front BS in the long range... like the Euro. Elevated convection with the WAA will probably happen at some point, but who knows if the real warm sector ever makes it here.

It looks like the warm front will be north of most of us, so probably plenty of sunshine. The GL backdoor sag idea is gone for now at least, which I like. It's just a matter of coverage. Something has to break the cap at the right time. GFS is now showing a pretty good system coming in from the west later but that's so far out still.

At some point there will be an E-W boundary wiggling north and south. Sucks when you're stuck on the north side by 300 miles or less. GFS has trended more towards the euro with a weaker front, so hopefully it hangs up north of the majority of the forum. It's weird how that zonal pattern hasn't really occurred yet this spring though. The longwave ridges and troughs span massive range of latitude, but have at least been moving. Wavy but progressive is nice. Cold fronts tend to be dry up north in this kind of pattern though. Big sprawling high's don't allow quick moisture return in their wake.

I don't understand why there isn't an alternate bare-bones radar site. I know they can't use flash anymore, but the layered GIS stuff is just too much until they upgrade to a faster server network. It works nice for climatological data like snow depth and rainfall, but its beyond useless for looping. The new radar color scheme is terrible too. I'd volunteer to fix it if they'd let me.

Euro looks thundery for Michigan next week. Something similar to what happened on the 7th last year would be cool.

Will be happy to see some green grass and growing buds now.

This second system will have way more juice to work with... and the GFS has finally fallen in line with a stronger system. These deepening systems with moisture are always dangerous this time of year. Would prefer if it was February and this was a snowstorm as the track is perfect for MBY.

The snow melt line in eastern Canada is farther north than 2012 at this time. It's not nearly as warm, but the lack of snow is concerning. Kinda worried this will be a hot dry summer with smoky cold fronts from fires in Canada. 2018 was very warm on average, but didn't have a lot of triple-digit stuff due to blocky pattern. This year could have more classic heat wave stuff that hasn't happened for a while.

Normally not excited about a cold windy rain, but this is very needed right now.

Snow depth is WAY below normal in Canada. Get ready for all of northern Ontario to burn.

What I really need is a high-end event that can be predicted with 48 hour notice. Driving south around both Lake Michigan AND Chicago traffic to reach rural Illinois in a single day is just impossible. I tried on 6/22/2016 but just couldn't get to the action in time. Don't know if there was even an actual tornado that day. As for local stuff, 4/7/2020 was an interesting day here in terms of storm structure and lightning, but it was all after dark. Most other times when there have been supercells around here, they were the HP blobs on an a slow moving W-E boundary... in like late August when the lake is warm. Those are pretty cool for their crazy after-dark lightning shows, but not much else. Actual tornados are mostly unpredictable land-spouts on days with visually uninspiring storm structures. They do damage, but you can't really chase them at all. Summer derecho season has been mostly dead since 2011.

The models are kinda all over the place with the next wave train after this dry stretch. The first low is occluding way northwest, but the southern stream stuff after that is just unpredictable. Waiting for the GFS to give me a snowstorm. lol. Does anyone think the warmup in the long range is real? Early April torch signals have been persistent despite the last week of March having a lot of spread.