CheeselandSkies

In other news, there was just a huge ****storm on another weather forum regarding the ethics of storm chasing against state stay-at-home-unless-essential orders (at least WI and IL both have one in place, don't know about IA) and following (or not) social distancing guidelines and other precautions while chasing. It seemed to be a relatively reasonable discussion until I logged on this morning and . I would like to once again thank the atmosphere for making Saturday an easy no-go for me the morning of, despite the proximity of a 15% hatch and the dearth of quality tornado setups in the region since 2/28/17, which I didn't chase because, well...it was February.

I wonder if this will turn out to be a tornado. Came in across the MS from IA. 0139 UNK 4 S LANCASTER GRANT WI 4279 9070 SEVERAL BARNS DESTROYED BETWEEN POTOSI AND LANCASTER. (ARX)

As usual, the IL/WI stateline acts as a brick wall for tornadic storms. It happens in June, so a March setup with underperforming thermos didn't stand a chance.

A small glimpse of what might have happened in IL today. Evidently that Oregon-Davis Jct. storm found a brief window of the right balance of ingredients. I would like to thank the atmosphere for making today an easy no-go for me even with a Day 2 moderate risk so close to home.

Wow, really did not expect anything this close to the state line with the way instability was held down all day. Storm is tracking just a little northwest of the path of the April 2015 EF4. Some good rumbles here a few minutes ago, too.

One of the IA warnings goes right up to the MS River. Can't imagine it will stay surface-based into WI though, given Madison is 45/43. Wasn't expecting this, though: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md0257.html

Cell coming up toward Caraway, AR looks like the next one to watch, although the latest warning is on one due west of the original tornadic cell.

New warning is not a TORR, CC appears to show most detectable debris being "old" debris falling out of the FFD. However, couplet did ramp back up there. Would have been a good time to use the "...THIS STORM HAS A HISTORY OF PRODUCING TORNADOES" wording in the new warning. *EDIT: Quickly changed to TORR warning based on spotter report.

Looked uncannily liked TCL 4/27/11, also in the way it formed. They were looking at a big wall cloud, then it abruptly condensed and rapidly expanded. Shows the kind of conditions that could have been in place today in IL/IA.

Well that's the kind of tornado that verifies a PDS watch...only a few hundred miles to the south. Broyles making everybody eat crow so far, this was in the original Day 3 risk was it not? Maybe him of all people going conservative should have been a red flag.

Might be biggest TDS I've ever seen.

Horizontal tubes and spewing out debris. I'm getting flashbacks of TCL 4/27/11.

Just dropped LIVE on KAIT. Power flashes and debris!

Couple of rumbles here. About the best I could hope for out of this with the WF stuck south (surprise).@madwx Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Very odd, I remember the two models' solutions being the reverse of that on 4/9/15. Hi-res NAM was gangbusters while HRRR was more subdued with the UH (at least on the last run I looked at before leaving the house ). Of course the models were somewhat different then (3KM NAM was the 4KM NAM, for one).

Indeed, that is why some people are still questioning whether all this social upheaval is necessary/worth it. You have only to look at what has been happening in Italy/some other places in Europe and is starting to happen in New York to see why it's necessary. ...and if the US and the rest of the developed world was caught so much at the mercy of this virus, imagine a pandemic of a similarly communicable disease with a much higher case fatality rate (basically the plot of Contagion).

15Z RAP appears to show the warm front getting into central WI, with southeasterly surface winds across the state not turning easterly until about the latitude of Green Bay. I have to imagine that's overdone. Although, it only has the 60 degree dewpoints nosing just north of the IL/WI state line so this might be one of those cases where there are multiple "warm fronts." I think the trick tomorrow might be finding the sweet spot where the winds are more backed in the 850-700mb layer. Seeing decent surface backing across the board, but they veer to SW pretty quick by 850mb in most soundings and pretty much stay in the same direction at least up to 700mb. At least they don't back again, then veer again (V-B-V).

We had a relatively mild winter, so Lake Michigan temperatures are above normal. Still will undoubtedly have some influence but perhaps not as much as you'd normally expect in an early season setup. The frigid February of 2015 was one of the things in the back of my mind that had me throw in the towel before T time on Rochelle day...

I think I've seen it once before; can't recall when though.

The Day 4-8 left something to be desired, as well RE: next Tuesday in Dixie; usually even with model disagreement the man is gung ho as can be if there's any potential at all.

Haven't seen a lot of hard data on how smoking affects COVID-19 prognosis. I saw one article that said one study showed it significantly increased the risk of complications and death, but two other studies showed no correlation. Simple logic would suggest that it increases risk since your lungs aren't as healthy as they otherwise would be when the infection starts doing its thing. Still, even though data still suggests that given adequate medical care the confirmed-case fatality rate is around 2% (still several orders of magnitude higher than the flu) with the vast majority of those being over 50 and the majority of those being over 70; I'm still hearing enough stories of people in their early 40s or 30s getting fatal or near fatal cases to make me nervous despite my relatively low risk demographics (I'm 34, nonsmoker, 5'11"/188, haven't even had a cold or flu that I remember since November 2016). I'm also concerned for my fiancée (also 34, but has several health conditions) and my parents (my dad just turned 71, my mom will turn 69 next month; so any snark about 'all the olds dying' or COVID-19 being a 'boomer remover' doesn't sit well with me). Also, I bolded "adequate" above because that's the scenario if the hospital isn't overwhelmed and you can get on a ventilator if you need to. AKA not what happened in Italy and, it's becoming apparent, New York. So, all in all, I am social-distancing the **** out of this and encouraging everyone I can to do so as well. I should add that my fiancée and I are quite fortunate that we both work in fields that are considered "essential" to continue to operate during this quasi-lockdown, so our income has so far been unaffected; yet both our employers are taking major steps to reduce the risk to their employees (she has worked from home every day this week except today, my job description requires me to be physically present but we are practicing 6' social distancing and using an obscene amount of hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes/spray several times per shift, and those members of staff who CAN work from home are).

He sounds uncharacteristically bearish on the Day 3 outlook. Doesn't even use the "T" word.

Good reminder of that's what all the social distancing policies, closings, cancellations, stay home orders, etc are for.

Can it please stop being mostly overcast and in the 30s/40s? I don't get how even after a relatively mild winter with our snowpack nuked by the end of the first week of March, proper spring still takes forever to get here. People wanting to get out and "social distance" in 60s-70s and sunshine are gonna have to wait another 3-4 weeks at the least, and that's not gonna be pretty.

Amen to that.