CheeselandSkies

Models not real keen on the good MCS action from tonight and again tomorrow night making it much east of the Mississippi. Story of the year it seems.

GFS pretty insistent on patches of 80s dews late this coming weekend/early next week.

0Z Wednesday (7 PM CDT Tuesday) 3KM NAM valid for 22Z Wednesday (5 PM CDT). Placement of tornadic cells was almost spot-on, but the timing was about 4 hours slower than reality (and much closer to the time of day I would expect tornadic storms).

Timelapse from our former chief engineer's webcam. At 1:31 the inflow band moves overhead and I think a second or two later the tornado spins up toward the right of the frame, he says it didn't form until just out of frame but I think it's just tough to see due to lack of contrast against the rain core from this angle. Then a dramatic RFD clear slot follows as the supercell pushes off to the northeast.

My brief look at the remnants of the previously tornado-warned updraft base near Lake Mills.

All the good stuff happened while I was stuck at work. If this event had waited until around 21Z (like CAMS were suggesting) I would have been right on it. By the time I got off at 18Z, ran home and grabbed my cameras everything was either crapping out or out of reach. Went for the one that had had a nice hook in Green County, it looked like trash when I finally got to it but stuck with it and it eventually went tornado-warned again near Cambridge. Got a brief view of an updraft base with a clear slot near Lake Mills, but that was about it. Tired of always missing everything in my backyard. It's always either too early in the day (you'd think getting off at 1PM you'd have plenty of time to catch a tornado 40 minutes from home), or happens way out of season/doesn't look good enough to go out (2/8/24).

Assuming that complex currently in southeastern South Dakota is the source for our MCV? Looks maybe a tad further north than anticipated based on the placement of today's Enhanced risk.

A miss north for you is a hit for me.

Slight risk out. A state line MCV setup with legs this time?

Wednesday looks potentially interesting, but that could just be me NAM wishcasting again.

SPC vs. 3K NAM...

GFS has been somewhat interesting for Friday afternoon/evening around northern IL, although it generates so much precip its hard to get a good handle on what the warm sector might actually look like. Near IL/WI stateline, more hodograph curvature, less instability: Further southeast, near SW burbs. Nice fat CAPE and plenty of 0-3KM CAPE: Those hodographs coupled with the high PWATs suggest HP modes to me, however especially on the second one it looks like the SR inflow might be small enough you can get smaller cells that aren't as rainy as you'd otherwise expect. We've pulled that off around here before on days like 8/9/21.

First *we'd* need to actually have an MCS over here. Although at least we have been doing pretty decent with the popups around Madison.

Yet another meteorologically unremarkable tropical system overperforms in the impacts/fatalities department due to freshwater flooding.

Kind of annoying that this active Northern Plains pattern hasn't really been able to move east in any meaningful fashion. Time was when eastern SD got tornadic supercells in the evening that meant we'd be getting a bow echo overnight.

Watch out for the western portion of the MCD area. Already a spotter reported tornado in Freeborn County, MN. However CAMS have been less than enthusiastic about today WRT potential robustness of any discrete warm frontal supercells.

Ten years ago OTD. Coal City/Braidwood, IL EF3 along with another EF3 in southeastern Iowa and several EF2s including the one that impacted the Woodhaven Lakes campground near Sublette (hit again, also EF2, during the outbreak of 3/31/23). I would have been able to see that one and the following EF1 in Mendota had they not been completely rain-wrapped.

That MCV looks like a frickin' landcane on the 12Z 3K NAM. Too bad it can't be coming through 3-4 hours later.

*Sigh*. Guess I'll armchair chase an event off to the east after two days of armchair chasing events off to the west.

I'm actually looking more at Tuesday evening. 00Z NAM moves an organized convective system through a strongly unstable environment in E IA/S WI/N IL Tuesday afternoon with what looks like some potential for supercells along the southern flank of it. These setups are always finicky with timing/placement of subtle shortwaves and associated MCS's which are crucial to determining the existence/placement of any chase-worthy threat. Often can't pin them down until the evening before at the earliest.

Could be looking at some action next week in the northern/western parts of the sub.

Ugh. Not a fan of this type of warning. "Possible large and extremely dangerous..." "Radar indicated rotation" It's either radar (TDS) or spotter confirmed as being "large and extremely dangerous," or you don't use the PDS designation.

I'm curious, at what level are the winds bringing the smoke in? According to the models we should be in southwest flow at 500 with this thunderstorm setup ahead of the incoming cold front.

Huh. Unless I was reading it wrong all the social media hype seemed to be for Sunday night.

Haven't seen any aurora pictures from MN/WI/IL from last night so I'm guessing the smoke busted it?