CT Rain

12 minutes ago, RCNYILWX said:

They got the start point of the tornado wrong. My parents live and I grew up on 121st street between 25th rd and 25th ave. They went out last night after the tornado happened and drove around and took photos. There was some decent damage southwest of the designated St Fidelis Church start point on 120th street between 18th and 20th ave and on 121st street just northeast of there. Might have been some damage closer to Flushing Bay even.

The most noteworthy damage on 120th street near 20th ave were a couple large trees down and a house with minor roof/gutter/siding/fascia damage. For reference, just that point is 0.3 miles from the official PNS start point. I highly doubt that the damage last night where it occurred was anything but tornadic, which also calls into question the end point, particularly how PNS mentioned straight line wind damage east-northeast of end point. Mini supercells are not known for causing straight line wind damage.

I wrote a note to the OKX WCM. Hopefully they take a look at adjusting at least the start point.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

Interesting. Their new WCM is Nelson Vaz - he just started. It's hard on those damage surveys to get everywhere so things get missed.

Well that's intriguing. Another little mesolow makes a run at us Saturday. Seems like a severe weather/flash flood risk in a small area near it. 

51 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

Think we could see a few strong or severe storms today 

Yup. not much forcing but plenty of CAPE and deep layer shear. 

18 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

I’d say congrats POU today. 

That’s one of your better calls.

41 minutes ago, Hoth said:

Realize you're probably quite busy, but why don't lapse rates matter as much for tornadoes later in the summer? 

If you want your classic supercell tornado like 1989 or 2011 you need the great lapse rates. This time of year we more often that not get tornadoes not from those epic setups but from setups like this. Deep moisture, anomalously strong mid level flow with a trough to the west, and a warm front coming through. 2013 Windsor, Revere, 2008 NH, etc are all examples of a super moist profile with enough shear to get the convective elements to spin.

15 minutes ago, Hoth said:

Lapse rates are pretty atrocious; not a lot of forcing either. But anything that does get going could certainly put down a spinner today given the CAPE, helicity, low LCL combo. Bad LRs are always a giant red flag for me though.

Depends on what you’re looking for. Many of our late July and August tornadoes occur with crap lapse rates.

Sooooo.... 21z SREF, latest HRRR, 00z NAM definitely have me concerned about a midday tornado threat. 

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

I'm actually a little interested in the warm front sloshing on shore in the morning too. Maybe Ryan's day starts early.

Yup. Also things get interesting late day with wind fields cranking up.

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

May 15th is like peak New England severe anyway. Might as well pack it in.

Yup. Time to move on to 2019 severe. 

29 years ago today. Woof. 

13 minutes ago, ct_yankee said:

That is like the weakest tornado I've ever seen! And that includes that momentary spin-up in the NH mountains a few weeks ago. Still, it's very cool, and pretty unexpected... Except of course by Ryan who predicted it. Nice.

7 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Very weak. I mean based on the environment it was probably more of a landspout type tornado than mesocyclone tornado. 

I'm actually surprised the earlier stuff didn't produce around midday in eastern Mass. The atmosphere was pretty primed along the warm front for something out east. 

2 minutes ago, ct_yankee said:

Your right, that hodo is actually not all that bad for NE. Where is this sounding for?

1 minute ago, weatherwiz said:

What station is that? That's actually not bad CAPE values given the shear. 

For BDL. 

Looks similar to the July 2013 events. 

Watch for a spinner tomorrow. Not great but there is some turning in the 0-1km layer. 

3 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Long Island or SNE?

Both

I mean it's certainly a low probability event but that low level shear look with a warm front coming across is worth watching. 

Sunrise Surprise setup Thursday morning - maybe lingering into midday? Strong veering in low levels with decent flow and some surface based CAPE. Seems like a conditional tornado/severe threat with low CAPE/high shear setup.

0-1km shear over 25 knots which is respectable... especially with low LCLs. 

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

A little sunrise surprise as the warm front surges onshore? Ryan's favorite.

Euro looks like Saturday evening fun? Nice LLJ 

1 minute ago, CoastalWx said:

Line coming together in wrn MA, Kevin FTL  again. That is associated with better dynamics. Still good theta-e ridge in place and now you have the height falls and PVA moving in.

I love how "SNE" for him excluded Massachusetts earlier lol

3 hours ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Enjoy up north . We cooked in SNE

Bad forecast. 

1 minute ago, weatherwiz said:

RAP/HRRR continue to really suggest enlarging hodographs as we move into the evening as stronger winds aloft move in. Also looks like a surge of higher theta-e air moving into western areas with a push of higher low-level moisture. that could help keep instability up there even for a few hours after sunset. Too bad lapse rates are awful but if some cell can get some updraft enhancement it will have lots to work with. 

They sure do.

I've seen much worse setups...

One of the more epic northeast US tornado debris signatures tonight in Bradford County, PA. 

TDS up to 15,000 feet at least. 

1 hour ago, OceanStWx said:

That's a key point. For the vast majority of CT, it was pretty meh. And for the next EML those towns may say mets always blow it out of proportion. 

In addition to the general knowledge of severe weather in the Plains, they also have the frequency. So while in any one event it's unlikely your backyard will be hit by a storm, over the course of a year there is a relatively high chance. 

People that experienced the severe weather Tuesday are unlikely to forget it, but  it's still a tiny percentage of the state. And that's not even counting the parts of MA and RI that were also included in the watch.

We were on the air pretty much from 2:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. with a break for NBC Nightly News. We didn't get one complaint about our coverage or the forecast.

Since high end severe weather is rare around here when people see the pictures of the damage they're generally pretty forgiving if their neighborhood wasn't impacted. Same thing on 6/1/11 we had been talking about tornado potential for 3 days - but no one complained about the forecast even though CT didn't see one. 

30 minutes ago, Cold Miser said:

A bit of a disheartening conversation with my mom yesterday. 

My parents (mom is 80 years old and my dad 87) live in Southbury, CT...one of the towns that was hit hard during last weeks severe.  They lost power as the tornado path seemingly went overhead and touchdown not too far from their house.  Lucky for them they were able to head to the Adirondacks for Memorial day a bit earlier, leaving the downed wires, trees, other damage, and frustrations of everyone else behind.  Many people were not so lucky as they were forced to hold up in shelters.  

We spoke yesterday about the weather, and forecasting in general, although the main gist of the brief conversation was with regard to the same old stuff we read on this forum...She was pretty much disgruntled at the "lack of forecasting", preparing them for the weather that happened that day. She admitted that early on in the day and the night before there were discussions of severe weather, but what got her was that no one mentioned on the news that there would be all of the damage, particularly the extent of the power outages in her area.  Basically, she is of that age where there is this expectation of details and specifics that just don't exist.  It was  bit disheartening to hear as I know all of the mets on this forum hear this kind of frustration all of the time...always 20/20 vision after the fact kind of stuff. She even pulled the go to line out as well..."Why do they even bother when most of the time they are wrong" .  She ended with, "What ever happened to the old days where the weather would come in once at night and once in the morning? Instead we have all day forecasting with nothing predicting what happened"  By the time it's my turn to chime in she has already worked herself up and want to discuss it anymore. 

I mean she's not wrong. How many severe thunderstorm watches have we had that result in a couple branches down? How do we communicate the truly high end events?

For the 15 towns hardest hit this was incredible - but for the other 154 towns in Connecticut this wasn't too big of a deal. All weather is local afterall. 

I put together this blog post on last week's storms with a bunch of good radar grabs. 

http://www.ryanhanrahan.com/2018/05/20/may-15-2018-tornadoes-and-damaging-wind/

3 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

Really at that point, you just throw your hands up and say "tornado-like winds." 

I always say during spotter training that you won't care whether the 100 mph winds were rotating when they hit your house. 

Yeah pretty much. Whether it's a circulation on the edge of it or just the core it's going to be ugly.