Chicago Storm

Some high temps from today across the area... 95 MDW 92 ORD 90 Ex-Home 90°+ day tally for the year... 23 - MDW17 - RFD18 - Ex-Home15 - ORD14 - Current Home

It's been a while since the last full update, though I've mentioned some tidbits here at there regarding the first part of August and not being onboard with the heat train. The previous full update above worked out pretty close to what was expected. However, for the very tail end of July (Final full week and weekend) we actually flipped briefly to a different pattern. That pattern continued to feature the well established/persistent/significant troughing across the Hudson/Greenland/Great Lakes/Northeast region, but the troughing that had been persistent across the GOA/PAC NW was replaced by ridging. This allowed for a cooler and drier week for much of the sub-forum (Minus far southern areas with the heavy rain/flooding that occurred). This week to start August we have reverted back to the previous pattern, which has been around much of the summer. As mentioned numerous times over the past few months, this pattern features well established and persistent/significant troughing in the Hudson/Greenland/Great Lakes/Northeast region, as well as persistent (But less significant) troughing in the GOA/PAC NW region. The main ridging continues to be sandwiched between, across the Inter-Mountain West/Plains and extending into the Southeast at times. All in all, this will lead to similar conditions as to what we have seen much of this summer for both early and middle August. The one exception appears to be around this upcoming weekend (Aug 6-7th ish). There will be another flex of the main ridge, as both areas of aforementioned persistent troughing briefly relax, allowing for ridging to briefly poke into much more of the sub-forum, along with a brief push of hotter conditions. Outside of that, the same summer pattern we have seen will generally continue.

Make sense given the action down that way. I haven't had a chance to look at the OBS out of there in a while.

Peak wind gust here at ORD today has been 38MPH, but not associated with any t’storm activity…just synoptic.

A downburst frenzy with the severe t’storm activity in parts of the metro, as almost every t’storm has had downburst signature at some point.

We really haven’t had a real -NAO, just a pseudo weak one from time to time. It has been more-so the persistent and significant troughing across the Hudson/Greenland/Great Lakes/Northeast much of the summer, as well a fairly persistent troughing across the GOA/Pac NW.

someone got fooled by the fake GFS mixing/thermals.

Some high temps from today across the area... 91 MDW 90 ORD 91 Ex-Home 90°+ day tally for the year... 22 - MDW17 - RFD17 - Ex-Home14 - ORD13 - Current Home

Over 10” radar estimates now…

heat isn’t looking great (not surprisingly), so moving attention to severe?

This upcoming period still does not impress this heat monger in terms of max heat potential. It appears the consistent troughing across Hudson/Greenland/Great Lakes/Northeast will send frequent frontal intrusions through portions of the sub-forum, making for more of a roller coaster temperatures setup between warm and hot conditions. It definitely does not look at all like a prolonged heat wave for at least half of the sub-forum at this point due to the above. The QC area on down to the STL area and into the OV is definitely in a better position for more prolonged heat wave than anywhere else in the sub-forum.

The EPS sum up how this upcoming period will likely go.

I’m still not sure what NCEP did to it, but whatever it is, it needs to be reversed.

Expectations for that early August potential should probably be tempered for now, until we actually see the what strength of both the GOA/PAC and Hudson/Greendland troughing looks like as we get a it closer.

Crazy stuff around the STL area overnight and into this morning.

I haven’t been able to find any information on if there had been any sort of upgrade conducted to the OP GFS heading into the summer. In any case, between it being too amped with ridging in the extended and the unrealistic super deep mixing it consistently has, it’s toss worthy on the reg now.

that's the spirit.

GRR area rolled by multiple MCS’s last night, and frostfern is nowhere to be found.

best climo.

a late morning/midday severe mcs is now considered 'debris clouds', that's a new one. and by the way, dayton only averages 16 days that are 90+ a year. there have been 11 this year so far, with more summer to go.

I'm guessing it was a combination of the residual cold pool/modified airmass from the Fri night/Sat activity having finally been eroded, and a brief period of increased advection ahead of the MCS/MVC in C/S WI and N IL.

Outside of Friday, it didn't make it into the 90's across the area for the rest of the weekend. High temps from Friday are below... 92 MDW 91 ORD 91 Ex-Home 90°+ day tally for the year... 21 - MDW17 - RFD16 - Ex-Home13 - Current Home13 - ORD

Living and dying by the HRRR too much. This is how it goes with hot start CAMS. Regarding the latter portion, there is a fair amount of capping across IA. The t’storm that you referenced that was previously in N IA was undercut by surging outflow from the main cluster moving through the LSE area.

Seems like a good call to have stayed enhanced, at least for now. There’s a lot of modified air over S WI/N IL/N IN/S MI, with an OFB pushing west and reinforcing in across SW WI and NW IL. We’ll see how it shakes out with time, but it could mean the maximized potential is in a small corridor across portions of NE IA/S WI/N IL.

I’m out camping in NW IL this weekend, at White Pines State Park (Near Oregon, IL). Didn’t see the same extent of training activity that the Chicago metro area did overnight/this morning, but did end up in a severe t’storm warning around 4:15AM with a stronger t’storm, and had a few other smaller t’storms nearby earlier this morning. The aforementioned severe t’storm produced 50-60MPH winds, marble size hail and a great light show.