CheeselandSkies

Yep, therein lies the rub with this kind of setup.

My interest in this setup has been piqued a tad over the last couple days, I might do some local spotting if something comes up toward WI. Was thinking about going into Iowa; but between the abrupt societal lockdown/economic disruption, disagreement among the CAMs on where the strongest storms will track, likelihood of having to contend with the MS River and the poor chasing terrain nearby, and Iowa's general track record with tornado threats (doesn't produce when you expect it do, does when you don't) I'm leaning against it at this point.

To put that in weather-speak, that's more than died in the April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak; or in any Atlantic hurricane since at least 1950 except for Katrina, Maria and (possibly) Dorian.

Finally got an official statement/policy from my apartment building's management on this (what they are doing as far as cleaning common areas, etc). I'm intrigued (and concerned) that despite the mass flight cancellations/airport chaos; I haven't heard of any action (increased cleaning, spacing out of passengers in cars, service cutbacks/total shutdowns, etc) from the passenger rail systems. Amtrak, Metra, CTA El...maybe I just missed it but I'm in the TV news business so I don't think so, unless something happened after I left work today. Has New York shut down their subway system? Lots of commuter rail systems in the Northeast, too. Jails and prisons are another thing that popped into my head. Dane County sheriff's department announced restrictions on visitors to the county jails; but what about state and federal prisons? Lots of people crowded close together; access is restricted but if the virus gets in it will wreak havoc.

Does it grind anyone else's gears that the thread for this subject in Off Topic is still titled "Wuhan Coronavirus"? I mean, the whole point of the rather utilitarian official name for the disease was to avoid stigmatizing a particular place and/or people.

I'm sure smoking doesn't help the prognosis, but let's not use being a nonsmoker as an excuse not to take other precautions.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but MJO into the IO is favorable for severe weather in the CONUS, is it not?

CPC has had this in their hazards outlook for a few days now. SPC Day 4-8 hints at it in their wording but they're still reluctant to commit to delineating a risk area.

Quite likely the most reasonable post I've seen on this subject on any of the weather forums I'm on. Thank you.

Because it's a severe event to weenie out over.

18Z HRRR sim ref/UH looks ugly for MO bootheel/southern IL/KY tomorrow, but we saw that have a tendency to overhype particularly with some of the OK setups last May. Of course, tomorrow will feature a rather different set of conditions than those did.

Ugly in the sense of favorable for svr wx?

Good insight, I need to get better about remembering this. Being based further north (like you) I've seen many an early season (even well into May for us) potential setup get quashed by insufficient instability, so I'm a CAPE guy. I get really geeked out to chase on those 86/77 days, then wonder why the updrafts weren't going up like atom bombs. This mindset cost me on 4/9/2015, when I was bumming around IN OGLE COUNTY, IL until about 4:30 PM, then threw in the towel and started for home. Got there just in time to pull up GR Level 3 and see the debris ball about 10 miles from where I'd just been 90 minutes before.

Good to hear this. Any YouTube uploads of this "pregame" coverage? It seems to me far too often most local TV mets (**coughcough the ones in my local market**) just parrot what the models are spitting out/what the NWS says, are reluctant to do their own mesoscale forecasting; go out on a limb and either downplay an event that everybody else is hyping (would have served them well in most of the snow events this past winter) or sound the alarm about what had seemed like a low-key situation (like overnight Monday-Tuesday). It's high reward, get it right and you look like a genius and earn major credibility for your station over the competition, but also high risk if you get it wrong.

That can't be right. There were at least that many F4+ in the state on April 16, 1998 alone, plus several E/F3+ on days like Veteran's Day 2002, May 4, 2003, Super Tuesday 2008, and April 27, 2011.

1,090 and no high risk. I'm not really seeing anything to flip us back to more sustained high-end tornado activity like was seen in some years such as 2003, '04, '08 and '11 (although, a neutral PDO and no big honking NE Pacific ridge forcing eastern troughing and keeping the central CONUS cold through April and into May after a mild DJF to piss off the snow lovers would help). Also guessing SPC will be somewhat gun-shy after the seeming slam-dunk of last May 20.

Which it did...and largely busted as we know. Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

If Monday holds serve from the 00Z suite, I suspect it will break the streak.

Can you give a little bit of background for what it means for CONUS severe weather which phase the MJO is in? Which phases are favorable and which are not?

Yeah, around 10 days ago I thought the pattern was gonna become more conducive quicker, but I have to remind myself there's still 9 days of March, and our morning temperature in the upper 30s today is actually slightly above normal.

Evidently SPC was throwing out the GFS when they put "potential too low" for next Thursday. It has been steady with a decent severe setup somewhere in the Plains in that timeframe for several runs now. That should at least warrant a "predictability too low" even if they aren't confident enough in magnitude/placement to delineate a 15% risk area.

GFS and Euro OP don't look too encouraging if you want warmth and storms in the Midwest. Shows a return to western ridging with the lowest 500mb heights across the eastern Lakes.

Tomorrow isn't as clear-cut as it once looked, but if the midweek system has instability problems (which 12Z GFS suggests it will) it won't be for lack of moisture....

On 12Z NAM, hodos are looking very impressive over the AL/MS border region (moreso than further west where instability is greater). Could be another scenario to watch out for prefrontal initiation in that area (as with last Sunday) if it can destabilize. Sounding attached is from a small pocket of higher CAPE depicted near and south of Columbus (ruh roh), MS. I see some slight backing on the wind barbs between 700 and 500 mb, but that doesn't look like game-breaker levels of VBV.

Since no one else has yet, I'll point out that there's a Day 4 risk area out for much of the TN Valley/Dixie Alley region. As usual still a lot of pieces to come together as to exactly how this will play out. Could be about as significant as last Saturday, or more, or less. Worth noting though since model trends have been upward for the possibility of severe weather in the area on Sunday.