CheeselandSkies

Nice downpour ongoing here, first thunder of the year for me since I missed hearing it during that "thundersleet" a few weeks ago. Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

01Z SPC outlook expanded the enhanced risk for wind into more of far SW/SC WI as well as NW/NC IL. The long-lived tornadic cell already appears to be shrinking/disorganizing a little bit due to sunset. The MS River can act as a brick wall for severe convection even into late May, so we'll see.

Right?! Apparently I still haven't learned that they produce way better than May/June nowadays.

related posts go here: After today, looks seasonable through Wednesday after which highs drop into the 20s through the following weekend, although not dramatically/excessively cold air as depicted on some model runs (as usual).

Ugh. Really thought there were some kinematic issues too (unidirectional winds above 850mb) that would prevent long-lived supercellular mode. If not for that I would have gone.

Fine time for GR Level 3 to stop updating the radar data.

Atmosphere making me eat my words today. Edit @Chicago Stormbeat me to it.

Corning/Prescott storm looks like it may became to become dominant enough to produce a more significant tornado, at least for a little while. It's on track for the southern part of the Des Moines area but not sure if it'll stay in a tornadic mode that long.

Tail-end Charlie getting it done near Corning, approaching Prescott.

As I suspected, looks like a mess already with tons of left splits and storms crashing into each other. Even so, there's been a tornado reported near Emerson, IA.

SPC went up to 10% on the 20Z outlook for parts of SW/SC IA. Tornado watch out. As usual, going to make me bite my nails on choosing not to go, but I stand my my assertion that the window for quality tornadic supercells, if any, will be quite narrow. They also added a 70% contour to the general thunder outlook, which Madison is on the eastern extent of.

Thought about it, but the best action looks to be a little too far west for my liking and there are issues with the setup besides marginal moisture that decrease my confidence in more than transient supercellular mode. Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

At a glance, that sounding ironically has a lot more CAPE than earlier runs, but wonky directional shear and paltry SRH.

I couldn't do it.

Looks identical to the two main Feb. storms, watch the southern one trend south and screw S. WI/E. IA/NW-NC IL again.

February 2022 definitely did not bring the action for southern WI though the way 2/20 and '21 did (*see above post made as I was typing mine).

NAM suggests even more meager instability than the GFS despite what appear to be decent lapse rates ahead of the cold front...looks like Saturday will be a "save the gas and enjoy the rain" kind of day at this point. Would like to bottle that forecast 500mb pattern and repeat it in about 6-8 weeks, though.

Yeah, for Saturday surface/500 mb look intriguing and have for quite a while, but paltry instability values have also been a consistent aspect of the model forecasts despite relatively high dewpoints for the latitude and time of year. As I've mentioned, it can happen but it takes absolutely on point kinematics and really cold air aloft (3/15/16 being a good example). At this point not really seeing a strong signal toward that, SPC's areal outline seems more like a "hedge our bets" type of forecast.

Apparently no one is interested in the severe threat for Saturday. SPC introduced an area centered on Iowa for Day 5 yesterday, and this morning expanded it to include parts of southwest WI and western IL. A bit optimistic IMO given the paltry instability values forecast, but seasonally high dewpoints for this latitude coupled with a strong negatively tilted 500mb shortwave and surface low always bears watching. We need the rain at any rate.

Sloppy seconds season getting started early. Saturday may turn out to be my earliest season chase day since 3/15/16 (dismissed the northern extent of 2/28/17 out of hand because of the calendar, won't make that mistake again).

Model watching season is just beginning for me.

RIP snow cover, we hardly knew ye.

God, I hope not.

Extended western/central troughing pattern is supported not only by consistency from op GFS but also the Euro and its ensembles...SPC has mentioned it in their 4-8 outlook for a few days now although the main timeframe of interest still remains at/just beyond the Day 8 range so they haven't introduced an areal highlight yet. Details remain nebulous as to be expected at this range. Ideally would be occurring a month or two later especially for action into this sub but it can still happen in early/mid March (or earlier) and happen big...2/28/17, 3/15/16, 3/2/12, 3/12/06, 3/13/90, even 3/18/25.

For sure. However, that's for something that's a fairly sensitive detail (albeit an important one, especially when talking about impacts to major metro areas), namely snowfall amounts. For general synoptics, you'd hope that some run-to-run consistency would mean SOMETHING.