Friday, April 8, 2011

A Few More Thoughts About The Late Weekend Event

The general ideas from earlier remain the same although the timing has slowed enough to make this more of an early Monday morning threat rather than Sunday evening. I still expect widespread high temperatures between 80-85 on Sunday (and possibly a bit higher in localized spots) as a robust elevated mixed layer overspreads the area. Due to warm temperatures aloft and the lack of a good forcing mechanism, no rain is expected during the day on Sunday.

Explosive thunderstorm development should occur in the eastern portion of the Plains on Sunday afternoon. This activity will likely start out as discrete supercells with a wind, hail and tornado threat. The big question is how long things will remain discrete as we move throughout the evening hours.  My best guess at this time is that may see a QLCS move in sometime after midnight with damaging winds being the biggest threat. The tornado threat is difficult to determine given lingering uncertainties about the degree of directional shear. Latest models have good speed shear and decent directional shear focused in the preferred lowest kilometer of the atmosphere. This appears to be a setup where a little more could increase that threat dramatically. Exact timing and storm mode are still not certain, and I’ve seen substantial changes almost right up until an event unfolds so this should continue to be closely monitored.

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