vortex95

Wxwiiz mad he missed this??? CoastalWx proby just MEH! LOL. Look what happened Thu just over the border in Pauling NY. Hail up to 2" in diameter. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1E8jBs32e1/ Video of hailfall: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=999500782484311 Serious wind damage right over the CT border in Quaker Hill NY. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1TsM5ejxkj/ NW flow delivers! The LTG plot reminded me of July 10, 1989 a little. Also, June 20, 1995. See here: https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/remembering-the-1995-hail-storm/16546/

And here we have yet another factor that misleads. Bad data and using a single point!

There are 4 types of drought: - meteorological - agricultural - hydrological - socioeconomic All go into the drought status monitor we see, but it can me misleading. For instance, two of the factors have nothing to w/ actual precip. Agricultural and socioeconomic deal primarily w/ land/water management (or the lack of) and demand over time from increase population/infrastructure (data centers anyone?). And it goes one step further within the categories. You can have plenty of rainfall, but a lack of snowfall, so the reservoirs and lakes are full and water table high, but snowpack is below avg. And keep in mind, the current U.S. Drought Monitor we look at weekly w/ its current standards and guidelines did not exist prior to 2000. So that is not long enough to determine trends either way. What we call drought and how we measure/categorize it has changed over time as well. From my observations long-term, the U.S Drought Monitor has a tendency to overdo it, and it is misreading b/c most ppl just think lack of precip for drought, when it is much more complex than that.

MSM cherry-picking again. Sure you have svr drought SE NH and ern MA, but that is just one local area. Take a look at the drought status 3 months ago compare to this week for the NEUS and Mid-Atlantic (attached). Overall improvement for the NEUS and Mid-Atlantic. A large area of svr drought is gone in NNE. Yet you get ppl just focused on one small area, not telling you the larger picture. SE NH and ern MA do not exist isolated. Watersheds flow into this region, and if adjacent watersheds in decent shape for precip, then that mitigates things downstream. The term "drought" is treated as singular and simple term. It's not like that at all. But some never let the details (or key facts) get in the way of a particular narrative (all gloom and doom and the end is nigh). The MSM narrative is to push drought all the time, as if it never should occur, any that occurs is unusual, and we can't handle it as society, never mind it is just one more thing to hype to scarce the public for ratings. Drought exits in the U.S 10-15% of time on avg, and it waxes and wanes in irregular cycles. This is not cause for alarm in itself. The NEUS and Mid-Atlantic have not had a multi-year drought since the 1960s. How is that possible if droughts are getting worse w/ time everywhere? Short-term droughts are common and par for the course. If you want to see a deep dive and analysis about how drought conditions and declarations are misused and abused, take a look here about conditions in WA currently. The morale here is that there is more to the story. https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-is-no-drought-emergency-in.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2026/05/why-washington-drought-emergency-should.html

You do realize that cooler can mean a lot of tstms and SVR!

Good that you noted the satellite presentation. One thing that *really* stands out to me and is atypical for a svr wx day here -- the storms had zero anvil-level flow. No glaciated anvils spread out anywhere upwind or downwind of the updrafts! It's just a series of "updraft puffs," so to speak! So upper-level winds were lacking as well. No "venting" of the updrafts, not good for sustained storms. This perhaps explains a lot why w/ such high CAPE the storms failed to realize their full potential! I attached a VIS GIF loop from 2130z to 2330z. Also, you can clearly see how outflow dominated the storms were almost from the start. And look at the high clouds over the Delmarva. Moving S? The ridge axis at 250 mb at 00z extended from about BGM to CAE. You don't want ridging aloft directly over the area of interest for svr wx! This also explained why the storms had no spreading anvils. So yet another item to throw in that messed things up! Yet many wind reports, so it wasn't a bust in terms of the slight risk, just some details were off, like lacking a lot LTG and more outflow dominant that you would expect. Actually, a pretty fascinating case looking at the details, and why things did what they did. It's important to look at why things fail in expectations, not just why things exceed expectations in fcsts!

Yes, the little details count when it comes to svr wx events. *One* thing off, and it can be the difference between several tors or none, or several intense, long-tracked tors or a bunch of weak, short-lived ones. For instance, sfc dew points are a few degrees lower than fcst. This raises the LFC, and lessens 0-3 km CAPE, which are key for tors. How many times does it look good "on paper" for big svr wx, and it fails. SCP and SIGTOR are high, and it's a major disappointment and under-performs. SCP and SIGTOR can't account for everything going on, they account for just some. They can't be treated in a vacuum! Of course, the door can swing the other way. How about June 5, 2024? That was a surprise! Yes, SPC had 2% tor risk, but it did not stand out as "big" for tor event in this area. It was not synopitcally-evident. And we got what, 13 tors? And they were not all just brief spin ups!

Thanks. 0-6 km shear was only 15 kt at IAD, well below the threshold for marginal supercells (30-35 kt), so storm lacked mid-level mesos. All you need is a half-decent meso at mid-levels, and that makes storms *so* much "better." Even if no severe wx, the LTG and rainfall ramps up! 0-8 km shear was even weaker at 14 kt. And look at hodograph, it is a chaotic mess! Tons of CAPE only takes you so far. If the shear is lousy, it's hard to sustain discrete, long-lived cells. I'd take 1500 CAPE and 0-6 kt shear 40-45 kt anytime over 3500 CAPE and 0-6 shear 15-20 kt! The presence of good wind shear also prevents storms from gusting out too easily. The updraft and downdraft couplets in the storms are separated better in a higher-sheared environment. I realize some already know this, but this is a very important point when it comes to mesocyclones. The presence of mesocyclone just at mid-levels (low-levels can be nothing) greatly enhances the potential updraft strength of a tstm. It can double the updraft strength from buoyancy (CAPE) alone though dynamic pressure perturbations, so that's why supercells have such intense updrafts. 1500-2000 CAPE may not sound like much, but if the shear is ideal, holy cow. For instance, the April 1965 Palm Sunday Outbreak in the OH Valley, CAPE was 1500-2000, and the 0-6 kt shear was about as high as I have ever seen it for an outbreak. It was 100-110 kt! That's crazy, and you had a lot of intense, long-tracked tors.

As noted in previous posts, odd for temps in the 90s and DPs 70 It acted more like a cool season line of gusty heavy showers. 00z analyzed NAM 1000-500 thk for DCA was 577, so that usually means 50k CB tops easy and lots of LTG. Peak mid-level lapse rates on the 00z IAD sounding were 7.0 C/km between 700-500 and CAPE at mid-levels was "fat." That should have lead to solid charge separation in the supercooled water level for lots of LTG. K-index 36, so not dry aloft. Sfc T-Td spreads around 25 so not too dry at low levels. Yet things were very outflow-ish. Storm cores should have been "meatier" for the lack of a better term! The thing that stands out in the sounding is the lack of solid deep layer shear, so that likely precluded stronger coherent cells or a more solid/thicker SQLN.

Indeedsnow SEZ otherwise! Just ignore the NW flow supercell in CT today. How about that 5.47" in Albany NH ydy?

I get the big metro area part, but look at this warning in NY/PA. Larger than the MD one, and much more rural. Not saying one should treat a more populated area differently than a less populated area, or an area w/ more outdoor events than another. Ethically, that is wrong as all people and infrastructure are important, but it does not seem always consistent w/ watches/warnings. It's no secret, as one example, that there is a bulls-eye of svr tstm watches centered over the DCA-BWI area and less in surrounding areas. It's not simply due to climo of the area. That suggests it is not done from an objective forecast science standpoint. It's no different looking at tornado warnings in various CWAs, and some have *way* more warnings than the adjacent ones, and again, that's not b/c of sudden difference in supercell/tornado climo. And this all leads back to public apathy caused by too many or excessive warnings. More is not always better. There comes a point of diminishing returns.

97 mi long? This kind of defeats the entire purpose of polygon *storm-based* warnings. We can do better than one giant "carpet bomb" SVR. There should be a limit to a size of a short-fused polygon warning. A large squall line is not necessarily "one-size fits all." And all that has to happen is one wind damage report anywhere in the polygon and it verifies. We should be fine-tuning and getting more detailed w/ warnings, not the other way around. There is real impact (economic and social) from over-warning.

Doing quite well in NNE for a "general tstm" outlook days. Stormin' since 3pm NH/VT! CoastalWx proby miffed the Lakes Region got hit again.

Scott HATES Dec 11-12, 1992. Just 5 mi away over a foot while Brockton got shafted. Even Logan got more (9") than Brockton. I got 18" in Woburn -- that officially ended the snow drought and it was my first foot plus over 8 years. Then the "good years" followed. What about March 2001? 22" In Woburn and Logan was MEH, so Scott really got stiffed in GHG!

March 1960 was epic, and so was Feb 1969 for different reasons.