Chinook

We are up to the point where the 00z convection-allowing models are covering Friday. Here is the 00z FV3 for Saturday 00z. The FV3 is usually quite a convection-happy model compared to others. I do expect some severe storms in Nebraska, probably some version of an MCS, and some supercells in Kansas and northern Oklahoma, east of a distinct dryline, with a huge moisture gradient.

SPC now has an enhanced risk for Friday

lots of storm reports around Richmond

There are about 5 large severe storms going in Oklahoma, all without too many storm reports that I have seen. There may be some hail reports that are not on the SPC database yet. 3D view of storm near Blanchard, OK, with OKC storm in the distance

Some broad rotation has been in the areas of SW Oklahoma city for a while. I don't believe there have been any reports of tornadoes yet.

Quite a bit of hail/wind activity near the dryline yesterday

As for my place, I think I got to 82-88, with just some breezes in the afternoon, with more winds of 25mph or better in the evening. Probably a lot more tomorrow. There are some major fires starting to burn I think west of Las Vegas, New Mexico and other places. If you plot all the severe thunderstorm reports and non-thunderstorm reports, you get this. Some fire reports are hidden under wind report icons.

This will summarize some of the things happening. The SPC has kept the enhanced risk relatively similar to the most recent one. The Day-2 outlook is a slight risk from Oklahoma to Minnesota (contrary to what is being shown here on the right) Then there's just a huge blizzard in the north and a high wind warning/extreme fire behavior in the south.

both posted April 19th near Cody, in northern Wyoming. I guess they briefly had a category 4 hurricane or something like that

Now the FV3, WRF-NSSL, and WRF-ARW have some convection on Friday (48 hours)

Useful plot for finding the correlation between scoring differential and true winning percentage (wins/games.) The Avalanche have the highest number of wins in the history of the Avalanche/Nordiques franchise. Several of the top teams in the NHL are trying to overcome some playoff futility in recent history, including Avalanche, Panthers, Maple Leafs, Oilers, Wild.

This was posted on Twitter on April 1st

The models show almost no precipitation in the Plains for tonight and tomorrow. For Friday, the NAM shows a high amount of capping pretty far west, possibly up to the dryline. The GFS shows high LCLs, but lower capping. Yes, there will be a strong low pressure system, but the only thing really good is 0-3km shear. So it kind of stinks unless we see some reason to think there will be higher chances of thunderstorms.

I kind of missed this one, since I don't normally look for tropical storm information in April. There was a Category-4 equivalent Typhoon Malakas, with max wind of 115 kt as determined by JTWC, on April 13th. This was away from land areas south and east of Japan, and west of Guam, if I could ever find Guam on a map, seriously.

three preliminary tornado reports, with large supercell, with 1" to 4" hail reported

a nice weather-related joke from NWS Grand Forks. They had blizzard conditions for many hours in central North Dakota. a windy weather reporting station in Fort Collins-- 8 calendar days had wind gusts of 30mph+ since 4/4 (including 4/4 evening)

radar image from Salado TX today. I haven't done this GRLevel2 stuff for a while-- downloaded a new 21-day free trial, and maybe I'll maximize my 3D slice and high res possibilities central arkansas last night

huge field of opportunities for updraft helicity tracks tomorrow. Some models have helicity tracks near Terre Haute and Evansville

tornado debris signature at Spring Valley, MN

I missed a lot of this stuff today, but here is a radar image of a possible tornado at the MN/IA border right now. radar is from ARX, generally south of Minneapolis

I think this is a debris signature east of Mayflower Arkansas. If not, then there's a tornado emergency, so there's got to be a tornado on ground, right?

could I please please please get one day without a 30mph wind

The models agree on a low pressure developing Sunday with rain/snow near the Colorado Wyoming border, with possible rain/snow for me at 06z Sunday (midnight). That low will be gone quickly. Then the big question mark is Tuesday, where models have a deep low pressure development with snow over the western half of Colorado. The 12z ECMWF does not have the high values of QPF/snow over eastern Colorado, like previous runs. Overall, ensembles/WPC forecasts show some QPF of 0.4-0.8" for the northeast quarter of Colorado over the next 7 days (or more.) This could be something that changes quickly, even though ensembles shouldn't be as changeable as operational runs.

sheesh, the ECMWF. These models just do not agree.