CheeselandSkies

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.

After another round of duds in the coming week (per SPC Day 4-8), recent GFS runs have been somewhat consistent in bringing greater CAPE values into the mid-South/TN Valley beneath strong 500mb southwesterly flow around the end of the month. Of course that is still in fantasyland so we shall see. *LOL, totally different look for that timeframe on the 6Z run.

12Z GFS wants to keep western troughing in place pretty much throughout the period, but without ever developing much appreciable instability inland. I know it has a penchant for lowballing CAPE, especially at longer ranges, but so far it has been generally right about the last few systems (including those coming this week) being low-end to non-events while "King" Euro at times had a more ominous look.

I'd be down for that. I keep thinking the Plains are overdue for another truly active chase season, with a 10-14 day locked in pattern producing multiple days with multiple cells the caliber of Rozel, DDC/Chapman, Pilger, etc in May, which maybe quiets down for a bit then reloads in June, rather like 2004 and 2008 did in the last decade. Then every spring the atmosphere says "Nope!"

Not really, just got the first decent event of the winter Friday night into yesterday. 61-page thread (and growing) devoted to tracking that one!

It's all good. I do lurk around here a lot because it's usually the only part of the forum where severe wx discussion is ongoing this time of year.

2018's over, guys. New thread time.

Enhanced (30% risk) for ARKLATEX into lower MS valley Friday. Slight risk for Dixie Saturday. Not an ideal setup but wouldn't sleep on an isolated impact event or two. This is the time of year when tornadoes in the South can strike any time of day, often out of a previously innocuous-looking QLCS, and people aren't as aware as they might be in the spring.

Goodness, look at that trough digging into the western US on the 12Z NAM with unfettered southerly flow off the western and central Gulf. Where was that in May?