purduewx80

It’s fun to be tracking WAA-driven nocturnal MCSs again, but a lot is dependent on tonight’s southward-moving convection and any debris-related impacts to heating tomorrow. Looks like a decent cap with the heat-wave associated EML advecting in. Long story short, too many mesoscale things at play to trust any guidance right now. 

1 hour ago, Brian D said:

The weather info from those instruments is meant for airport ops, not climate. And besides, almost the entire record is UHI contaminated, anyway. I've seen small town readings higher like airports because of infrastructure, compared to the truly rural sites. NOAA has invested in the US Climate Reference Network to get a better handle on this issue. Don't know how that is going at the moment, but even they know through studies in recent years how much infrastructure contaminates temperatures. Anthony Watts really brought that to light with his study a decade ago, and NOAA acknowledged his work, and confirmed it. NOAA even did a study on site placement near and away from structures, and found significance there. But no matter what, a cooling/warming signal will always emerge from that noise. Just takes a while.

 

There are a lot of people affected by the UHI effect, so what we are experiencing is real. It’s also a good thing we have plenty of other climate data to back up what is obvious happening globally.  

12 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

That’s quite interesting. None of those are particularly large airports, with the exception of MSP. As UHI effects go, I don’t know much about La Crosse or Duluth, but I know UW-Madison is basically downtown while the airport is way out on the east side, so it’s interesting that the airport would run so much warmer, especially being the small regional airport that it is. With that being said, it does appear that records at La Crosse airport date back to 1938, so I would say it’s valid to compare any data from then to now. But I’m wondering if it’s maybe more of a geographical thing than a UHI thing, at least in that case.

UW would still most definitely have the cooling influence of Mendota and to a lesser degree Monona this early in the season. 

ARX is also on the higher terrain above the Mississippi, which is why LSE in the valley is warmer. 
 

Can’t really explain Duluth since it’s practically on airport property. NWS is surrounded by trees though. 

21 hours ago, Jonger said:

Not really worried about COVID.... people within risk groups need to handle their business and let others get back to normal.

This is literally discriminatory thinking. You sound like a terrible boss for people who aren’t like you. 
 

https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-infection-by-race/expert-answers/faq-20488802

54 minutes ago, Malacka11 said:

Second dose of Pfizer is kicking my ass. Got the shot yesterday and felt fine with just a sore arm, but the second I went to bed I got sick as hell. It felt like influenza 2.0... Chills, fever, severe back and neck pain, my head felt like it was splitting in two. Popped 600mg Ibuprofen and that helped a lot, but I'm hoping I don't get worse again in two hours' time.

When I had COVID-19, the back, neck and head pain were like that for over a week. Hope you’re well in short order. 

LOT leaving central Cook out of the frost advisory was a good call. Never got below 40 here in the UHI. 

It isn't going to take that much heating to achieve the convective temp seen on local upper air soundings this morning (probably by noon in IA/WI). That convective trigger temp is anywhere from 69-74F (72F on the DVN sounding below). It may not even need to reach that high to get things going with the two MCVs approaching, a number of surface convergence areas and differential heating. 

Faster mid-level flow is found just S of the NW Missouri MCV and should make it up to about I-80, so that may be the limit to the potential for more organized severe wx. I am personally 100% ok w/ a garden variety storm at this point. Storm motions will not be all that fast so some of us will pick up a prolonged downpour.

Should get an MCV or two out of this to help kick things off early tomorrow afternoon and also locally enhance the severe threat. Pretty big timing difference in hi-res and globals. The AM upper low will have to get out of the way to achieve sufficient instability, which seems doable. Curious to see how this interacts with the outflow/front across WI or northern IL too. 

35 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Temperatures are generally running above even the warmer guidance.  Here are progs at 21z vs. actual.

If this trend repeats tomorrow, then it may be a very close call at ORD with the record of 87.

RGEM nailing it around here today and gets ORD to 86 tomorrow. 

Latest Euro valid at 1PM Wednesday for Aurora:

0-3km lapse rates are 9.6C/km and the equilibrium level is more than cold enough for lightning (threshold is ~-30C). The freezing level is near 2000', but any heavy precip would be just enough to bring snow in the core of any potential convective cells. 

Wherever tomorrow doesn’t deliver, there may be a risk for heavy snow showers Wednesday under the cold core. ECMWF area forecast sounding for LOT’s CWA below - point soundings from it and the NAMs show some potential for TSSN. I believe we had a similar April setup in ~2016 that produced local squalls w lightning and thunder. 

There's a subtle mesolow the HRRR has been hinting at currently in eastern IL. The front has more or less stalled over Newton & Benton counties in IN as that low lifts northwards ahead of a decent s/w trough; it'll probably stall over Lake Co shortly. Will be a decent focus for showers and embedded storms with a heavy rain threat along and to the west of it. Any isolated severe threat will be just east across the rest of IN into SW MI. 

Perhaps a non-zero mini-sup/tornado threat ahead of the front early this afternoon, where winds stay backed from the SE. Should be some good local downpours given the high PWATs and slow progression of the front. Judging by where the front is currently, the higher threat locally is probably across NW IN into MI. 12Z NAMNEST near the IL/IN border at 3PM:

4 minutes ago, CorePunch said:

Thats F’n ridiculous 

Is it though?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/04/06/health/youth-sports-covid-spread-wellness/index.html

Up to 70 at O’Hare, finally. 1st of the year. 

Getting vaccinated prevents the vast majority of vaccinated people from catching COVID and unknowingly passing it on to others. 
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0329-COVID-19-Vaccines.html

9 minutes ago, dta1984 said:

Not picking on you, but wtf is this really a thought by someone?   Are we going to go full segregation and get our own water fountains and bus seating too?

Oh look. Another racist false equivalency. 

48 minutes ago, Malacka11 said:

What is wrong with you people seriously

Stebo was right. 

8 hours ago, Hoosier said:

Not going to comment on that specific case, but there have definitely been ramifications from calling this the "China virus." 

I have seen the argument that there is some history of naming diseases based on where the initial cases showed up, such as Lyme Disease and Saint Louis encephalitis.  Then there's the big one -- the Spanish Flu -- which didn't even originate there.  Perhaps we shouldn't have given those names to those diseases, but it's kinda tough to go back decades and undo that.  It is difficult to ascribe any innocent motive to calling this the "China virus."  It was never called that in an official capacity, and it is easy enough to just say coronavirus, covid, covid-19, SARS-CoV2.  It's not some 20 letter word that is hard to remember.   

this doesn't go nearly far enough in addressing the rampant racism in this thread. do better.

14 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

So I guess Para gfs is still not the main gfs as it was supposed to be Mar 17th?

Postponed to an as-yet-determined date by the severe weather this week.

https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/noaa-to-announce-major-upgrades-to-us-weather-model

2 hours ago, schoeppeya said:

You're going to pretend that even the worst smartphone somebody has in their pocket hasn't eliminated the case you're trying to make? You don't need home internet or a computer to make an appointment to get the vaccine. 

You forget about apps like Uber on those smartphones that also make the case you're trying to make irrelevant?

There are actual studies within the the last month that show African American's aren't getting the vaccine at higher rates because they distrust the vaccine/government. Here is one of them. A quick google search will turn up dozens more. 

https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/black-americans-distrust-covid-vaccine

What is incredibly degrading is that you really think African Americans aren't capable of setting up an appointment to get the vaccine and then coordinating a way to get there if they actually want it. So who is racist?

 

I'm not pretending anything. This is all well-documented. I see your random internet article and raise you another random internet article with many, many valid counterpoints. 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-fewer-black-americans-are-getting-the-covid-19-vaccine-no-its-not-hesitancy/

1 hour ago, schoeppeya said:

Lol. Because all black people are too poor to have cars and access to the internet, right? The mental gymnastics people do to make "inequality" an excuse for any race related stat is impressive.

It's far more complicated than that, but your racism is showing loud and clear.

Here's some relevant info that's a little dated (2006):

Quote

African Americans have the lowest car ownership of all racial and ethnic groups in the country, the researchers say, with 19 percent living in homes in which no one owns a car. That compares to 4.6 percent of whites in homes with no car, 13.7 percent of Latinos, and 9.6 percent of the remaining groups combined.

Reference: internet, the graph below speaks for itself:

16 minutes ago, dta1984 said:

The pharmaceutical companies would never lie to us https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-largest-health-care-fraud-settlement-its-history

Quit living in fear, man. 

Driving west out of the city to Aurora was wild. Went from everyone speeding and cops pulling people over to a complete whiteout in only a few minutes. All snow until Aurora where there are a few pingers mixing in. 

Just now, Chicago Storm said:

i lose that battle.

pretty shocking to see after the recent warmth. guess the dry/cold air feed from the east means business.