high risk

Some decent forecasted reflectivity structures in some of the CAMs for later this afternoon, especially in the HRRR and especially over northern VA. Instability is meager, but freezing levels are low, and low-level lapse rates are good. Would not be surprised to see a little small hail and perhaps even a lightning strike or two in the strongest cores.

Realizing that this isn't really the right local forum for this question, but since the correct forum isn't very busy and there has been plenty of discussion about this case in this thread, does anyone have a good feel for why the Jonesboro violent tornado occurred? SPC's outlook didn't have hatched probs in AR, and the MD they issued a little while before the event mentioned the possibility of only a few QLCS tornadoes. The mid-afternoon LZK sounding had decent a decent wind profile, but low-level shear was very modest. The environment in northeast AR didn't seem particularly special. Was there a rapid improvement in parameters late Saturday afternoon that wasn't captured? Or did the storm find a boundary to latch on to?

These soundings aren't too bad - wind profiles in the lowest 1 km are a bit weak but still fairly good. Kmlwx has a good analysis - the problem is that not much guidance shows robust convective development in this area. The one way we could sneak into a better event is if the NAM nest is correct about the slow progression of the warm front. If a cell interacted with that boundary, it could get interesting.

wow! low-level directional shear is lacking a bit, but the low LCLs and impressive low-level cape would make that a volatile environment. Even if we chop off a few degrees from the T and Td, it's still scary.

for us on Sunday, right now the forecast soundings look terrible with limited instability and weak low level flow. It's also unclear whether the cool air will erode over the northeastern half of this subforum. Gonna need a huge improvement in the setup to give us anything of interest.

1500 is probably enough cape to handle that kind of instability, especially given that it's not "tall, skinny" cape, and there is enough low-level instability for good parcel accelerations. The forecasted soundings keep getting better, and SPC now has a day 2 MDT which looks justified. Still questions about evolution of elevated convection earlier in the day and resulting impact on how far north the warm front can get, but areas just south of wherever the warm front ends up look primed.

The problem seems to be that the sfc high to our northeast is moving out faster than was being shown, leading to the sfc winds shifting from north in the morning to southeast by the end of the day. In the NAM and GFS, that allows the sfc dew points, which start the day in the low teens, to recover to the low 30's by evening. That certainly won't get the job done. If we can somehow hold in northeast sfc winds for more of the day, we'll be able to keep the drier air in place and potentially reap some wet bulb benefits when the precip arrives.

NAM nest still shows that the front will sink back to the southwest later today and cool things down for those northeast of DC. HRRR seems to be coming on board.

While it's an obvious long shot, and I won't try to pretend otherwise, this is a chilly and very dry air mass that will settling in over us on Sunday. (The GFS shows dew points dropping perhaps into the single digits early Sunday). So IF the low can track south of us and we can get precip in here overnight Sunday, that could work for some of us.

There has been discussion about this line over in the severe thread. It's been going for a couple of hours now.

There are some small hints of it in the previous HRRR runs, but it's overall really tough for a model to get this, as it has to get the initial forcing and cold pool dynamics. Forecast soundings show a strengthening unidirectional wind profile and some downdraft cape......

This line is producing. I've seen a few events like this over the years, with a fast-moving line of low-topped showers requiring warnings. Will be interesting to see how far southeast they survive.

not at all saying that this will end up as a severe event, but the radar is supposed to look empty right now, regardless of whether we get severe. The guidance shows storms breaking out over central WV in the next 2 hours and then racing east-northeast.

lots of signal around 7 or 8pm, but a general 6-9pm range should cover it. overall severe threat seems fairly low but not non-zero, consistent with the SPC outlook. But lightning would be a nice early March bonus.

you have a very legit chance of seeing convection, for sure.