Feb 24-25th Severe Weather

[tornadohunter]

0z nam coming in. A tad quicker and a tad weaker

[tornadohunter]

1 hour ago, IWXwx said:

I don't blame you. I'm liking just to the west of MBY as a starting place. I don't want to blink as they race by or I'll miss it.

Where is MBY and where can i find a list of these abbreviations and corresponding locations. Used to find them on COD but i cant find them anymore

 

[Chicago Storm]

I'm still not onboard for anything outside of slight risk worthy severe in IN/MI/OH.

Probably see a QLCS develop and race NE, with some embedded cells with isolated tor potential.

[bjc0303]

1 hour ago, andyhb said:

I think that's north of the warm front with the near-surface inversion there. Soundings from south of the WF generally in the K'zoo/Battle Creek/Jackson area look pretty decent though on the 18z NAM. The Euro seems to be way undershooting the rest of the models with the moisture, I'd be interested to see its verification with dewpoints since the upgrade last year because it seems to me that it has ended up lowballing quite a few events in this respect since then (was particularly noticeable in May last year).

How does the Euro handle things from a dynamical/kinematics perspective? interested because I've only recently begun to use ECMWF hi res guidance. can answer in direct message to avoid OT. 

 

Side note- seems to me moisture has been on par w/ECMWF forecasts so far, in the plains at least.

[andyhb]

7 minutes ago, bjc0303 said:

How does the Euro handle things from a dynamical/kinematics perspective? interested because I've only recently begun to use ECMWF hi res guidance. can answer in direct message to avoid OT. 

Side note- seems to me moisture has been on par w/ECMWF forecasts so far, in the plains at least.

Thus far since the upgrade? The Euro really didn't do well at all with any of the Plains events last May from my perspective, sometimes undershooting by at least 5˚F. I'm not sure those 5/22-5/25 events (or 5/9 for that matter) would've happened the way they did if it had its way with moisture.

Regarding dynamics/kinematics, it is definitely better than the GFS, albeit it obviously won't see some of the finer details that the mesoscale models will pick up on (pre-frontal wind shifts being one of them).

For the record, I'm still pretty leery on this setup myself, even a couple degrees of underperformance and/or mixing with the dewpoints or premature veering of the surface winds and it's pretty much dead in the water.

[Hoosier]

26 minutes ago, tornadohunter said:

Where is MBY and where can i find a list of these abbreviations and corresponding locations. Used to find them on COD but i cant find them anymore

 

MBY means "my backyard"

[Stebo]

1 minute ago, Hoosier said:

MBY means "my backyard"

[bjc0303]

4 minutes ago, andyhb said:

Thus far since the upgrade? The Euro really didn't do well at all with any of the Plains events last May from my perspective, sometimes undershooting by at least 5˚F. I'm not sure those 5/22-5/25 events (or 5/9 for that matter) would've happened the way they did if it had its way with moisture.

Regarding dynamics/kinematics, it is definitely better than the GFS, albeit it obviously won't see some of the finer details that the mesoscale models will pick up on (pre-frontal wind shifts being one of them).

For the record, I'm still pretty leery on this setup myself, even a couple degrees of underperformance and/or mixing with the dewpoints or premature veering of the surface winds and it's pretty much dead in the water.

I meant this spring. I've only used premium wx bell ECMWF hi res data for the last month or so...

 

Also, I'd have to say that with the exception of a few soundings/areas, this seems almost surely like a QLCS event. Even with prefrontal supercells, at least what I saw suggested splitting supercells and critical angles that may make low level mesocyclogenesis difficult. 

 

Also - myou questions about the euro were more for Tuesday. as far as a supercell/tornado event goes I am much more interested in that. ECMWF has been substantially more consistent and potent than the GFS, but you can check that thread out for more of my thoughts. 

[Anti tornado]

3 minutes ago, Stebo said:

[HillsdaleMIWeather]

From the 0Z Runs so far, the sim. radars still show a broken line of cells along the front, maybe a supercell or two ahead of the line, The 0Z GFS has slightly higher instability, and the NAM after 18Z Friday is pretty much the same as earlier.

[Anti tornado]

This is a sounding off the nam for TOMORROW. 2/23. North of Dayton Ohio. Think I will chase for ****s and giggles 

[Hoosier]

Not hard to find the warm front

[Nflow6]

3 hours ago, cyclone77 said:

Thought about maybe heading out east to chase this setup if things continued to look better.  Looked at a few soundings and saw the 50-60kt storm speeds, and was like naaaa.  

Yep pretty much par for the course these parts in early spring, well met spr 1 wk away. 50-70 miles down the road in an hour! Have to get out ahead quite a bit because you won't catch anything and hope for some discrete cells before the forcing.

OT note: Hoosier thanks for the heads up in the Palm Sunday thread a while back. i don't know how I missed that either. That newly found photo from MI all I can say is wow!

[Hoosier]

Hasn't been mentioned much but as far as tornado potential... with dewpoints in the upper 50s or so, you don't want temps getting much past 70-72, or else LCLs may get out of the ideal zone and add a complicating factor.  This would be a case where some cloudiness wouldn't hurt, within reason of course.

[RyanDe680]

1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

MBY means "my backyard"

lol

 

Should have let Hillsdale answer that   #2016

[HillsdaleMIWeather]

6 minutes ago, RyanDe680 said:

lol

 

Should have let Hillsdale answer that   #2016

I like to pretend that never happened lol

[tornadohunter]

Quote

The northeastward advection of an elevated mixed layer and
   associated steep to very steep 700-500 mb lapse rates (7-8.5 degrees
   per km) from the south-central states will overspread this region
   during the morning.  A capping inversion will likely limit
   showers/thunderstorms to be near the advancing warm frontal zone
   during the morning with mid-upper 50s dewpoints amidst strong
   southerly low-level flow.  By early to mid-afternoon, NAM model
   guidance indicates temperatures will warm well into the 60s across
   much of the warm sector compared to the much cooler GFS.  The
   increasing influence of DCVA/500-mb height falls coupled with
   heating will likely lead to thunderstorms developing into one or
   more broken bands.  Strong effective shear (45-60 kt) coupled with
   MLCAPE increasing into the 250-1250 J/kg range will support strong
   to severe thunderstorms.  Forecast soundings show moist boundary
   layers with effective SRH in the 150-200 m2/s2 range over much of
   the warm sector but locally higher (200-300 m2/s2) over the northern
   portion of the Enhanced Risk in the Michiana/southern Lower Michigan
   vicinity.  A mixed mode of both linear and cellular (some of which
   maturing into supercells) is expected during the early half of the
   convective life cycle.  The threats from the more intense storms
   include damaging winds, large hail, and the possibility for
   tornadoes.  Upscale growth will likely occur during the
   evening/overnight as storms move eastward across the OH Valley and
   the severe risk transitions to primarily damaging winds as
   southwesterly 700-mb flow strengthens to 60-kt.

SPC sounds a little more concerned about line segments/supercells

[HillsdaleMIWeather]

Day 2 Outlook expanded the Enhanced Risk, calling for damaging wind, hail, and tornadoes.

Edit: ninja'd

[Stebo]

Just to put it into perspective with tornadoes, MI has had exactly 1 tornado in February. 2/28/74...

[Hoosier]

19 minutes ago, Stebo said:

Just to put it into perspective with tornadoes, MI has had exactly 1 tornado in February. 2/28/74...

[Stebo]

14 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Pretty much most of the ENH is going to be in rare air if we get any tornadoes.

[Hoosier]

8 minutes ago, Stebo said:

Pretty much most of the ENH is going to be in rare air if we get any tornadoes.

There's 0 February tornadoes in Michigan in the pre-1950/Grazulis records.  Of course that is "significant" tornadoes so it doesn't include any smaller ones that may have occurred.

[Stebo]

5 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

There's 0 February tornadoes in Michigan in the pre-1950/Grazulis records.  Of course that is "significant" tornadoes so it doesn't include any smaller ones that may have occurred.

I'd have to imagine if there were any more you could count them on one hand.

[KokomoWX]

I'm just going to call it and say Van Wert County, Ohio is where I'd expect a tornado.  With 29+ confirmed since 1950, it seems like an easy call.  

 

[IWXwx]

9 hours ago, tornadohunter said:

Where is MBY and where can i find a list of these abbreviations and corresponding locations. Used to find them on COD but i cant find them anymore

 

IATA for Huntington, IN = MBY lol Just kidding.

You can find a list here: http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/surface/stations.txt

Even though the tornado threat may be thread the needle, my concern from my Emergency Management standpoint is a very high risk for damaging winds.

[IWXwx]

9 minutes ago, KokomoWX said:

I'm just going to call it and say Van Wert County, Ohio is where I'd expect a tornado.  With 29+ confirmed since 1950, it seems like an easy call.  

 

Dude, we in EMA constantly joke about Van Vert County, OH being the tornado magnet.

It seems that their specialty is "non-prime season" events, with 11/10/02 leading the pack. I'll have to research later to find exact dates of all of their tornadoes, but anecdotally, their cool season events rock.

[Natester]

12 NAM 3k at hour 38. 

[OHweather]

I do think there's a conditional risk for a relatively brief window in which a few tornadoes are possible in eastern IN, southern MI and into western OH if that pre-frontal trough can indeed spark robust convection as the hi-res NAM shows. LCLs should come down a bit early evening and low level winds should back just enough in this area to enlarge hodographs enough for any discrete storms to have a tornado risk and produce large hail. I think this conditional window is rather brief as instability will diminish some later in the evening and as I'd expect these storms to go linear within a few hours as they push east towards Detroit and central OH...though a risk for straight line winds and a brief spin up may still accompany any storms well through the evening as they move east. 

If the pre-frontal trough for some reason isn't enough of a trigger for storms to fire, I suspect we'd have a forced line develop along the front with a few wind reports but a minimal tornado or hail threat. 

NAM soundings show the cap at the base of the EML weakening along the pre-frontal trough by early evening so the conditional threat has some chance of playing out...better large scale ascent doesn't arrive until 3-6z so if storms develop in that area I do think there's a window for them to remain semi-discrete. With potentially over 1000J/KG of MLCAPE and steep mid-level lapse rates, along with wind profiles favorable for right moving supercells, if we do see some semi-discrete cells some of the hail could border on very large.  With iffy forcing along the pre-frontal trough and a modest cap to break it needs to be stressed this higher end solution is conditional, but given the potential I can see why the SPC is going with the enhanced risk. 

[Hoosier]

Some changes on the updated outlook. Western side was chopped off.

[nwohweather]

I do think there's a conditional risk for a relatively brief window in which a few tornadoes are possible in eastern IN, southern MI and into western OH if that pre-frontal trough can indeed spark robust convection as the hi-res NAM shows. LCLs should come down a bit early evening and low level winds should back just enough in this area to enlarge hodographs enough for any discrete storms to have a tornado risk and produce large hail. I think this conditional window is rather brief as instability will diminish some later in the evening and as I'd expect these storms to go linear within a few hours as they push east towards Detroit and central OH...though a risk for straight line winds and a brief spin up may still accompany any storms well through the evening as they move east. 

If the pre-frontal trough for some reason isn't enough of a trigger for storms to fire, I suspect we'd have a forced line develop along the front with a few wind reports but a minimal tornado or hail threat. 

NAM soundings show the cap at the base of the EML weakening along the pre-frontal trough by early evening so the conditional threat has some chance of playing out...better large scale ascent doesn't arrive until 3-6z so if storms develop in that area I do think there's a window for them to remain semi-discrete. With potentially over 1000J/KG of MLCAPE and steep mid-level lapse rates, along with wind profiles favorable for right moving supercells, if we do see some semi-discrete cells some of the hail could border on very large.  With iffy forcing along the pre-frontal trough and a modest cap to break it needs to be stressed this higher end solution is conditional, but given the potential I can see why the SPC is going with the enhanced risk. 

Love the point you touched on with the hail. Those lapse rates are very impressive for the NW Ohio region