Eskimo Joe

SPC issues SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH until 21:00 UTC

It's entirely possible to get a dump of small hail stones from sub-severe storms today. There are several mPING report in the 0.25" - 0.5" range in areas with limited population so you know the storms are producing if you're getting reports from the void.

Significant uptick in lightning just west of Garrett County.

Just like that a decent wedge of clearing appears on visible. Damn.

Hail being reported with the line NW of Morgantown, WV and it's 53/42 there. If we can manage like 65/45 today we're probably good.

This is your "classic" DC severe day. Cloudy, limited instability but decent lapse rate and/or shear. We get some clearing and one or two spots win out but for everyone else it's a ho-hum event.

Today has sneaky severe written all over it. Could be a legit big hailer or two even back towards Frederick.

Baltimore and upper eastern shore slight risked on the SWODY2

I'd like to the see the euro pull the low just a tad NW a bit. But that's a healthy signal for another event worth watching.

/mid atlantic

It's pretty!

The Carroll County tornado makes it the 2nd tornado in that watch box and verifies the watch box. IMO, while the SPC SWODY2 & SWODY1 have been pretty iffy in the Mid Atlantic of late, their watch boxes have gotten really good.

Couple of thoughts about this past event. These are my own casual observations, feel free to add/subtract/disagree. 1.) Severe weather events are messy here 9.9 times out of 10. We usually bust on the low side of things. No matter how animated the meso models are leading up to an event, always remain skeptical and rely on the nowcasting stuff the morning of to determine where everything is lining up. 2.) The warm front will struggle to push north of I-66 the night before the event. It seems that no matter what happens, warm fronts tend to settle out between I-66 and the Potomac and not make much progress until around late morning or lunch. The longer northward progression is delayed, the lower the chances of a middle to high end event. 3.) Big dynamics with okay instability beats great instability over meh dynamics. The February event and this past event on April 13th show that it doesn't take much surface based instability to get things going if upstairs is rocking. 4.) Sub 1000mb lows just to our NW don't go quietly into the night (Credit: @Rainshadow). The June, 2013 event, the Feb 2020 event and the April 13th event reinforce my thoughts on #3.

Yesterday in upper Montgomery County:

That Kent Cointy cell put down some damage east of Dover AFB per Delaware State OEM.

Interesting how the 12z HRRR actually nailed today's storm mode and motion. Everything after that was crapola from an HRRR perspective.

Hah!

Appears to be several eddies from Sudlersville, to Bridgetown on the eastern shore. Any of them look good for a quick spin up.

We definitely verified on the lower end of things but it was still a solid slight risk event. We were so close to this being a solid regionwide event though.

Solid line running through the eastern shore. Per Dover radar, there are several pixels of nearly 70kt winds just north of Starr, MD.

Delmarva and S NJ fully realizing convective potentialy and there's no inversion to prevent winds from mixing down. Should be some healthy wind reports out of three.