weatherwiz

It was quite the boundary for sure with an extensive temperature/moisture gradient. Despite how significant the flooding was in the St. Louis area and the devastating flooding that resulted in Kentucky I had thought we would see even more flooding occur this week. That boundary really did not move much either over the course of the week. I think what helped prevent a more widespread significant episode was the precipitation ended up coming in more batches.

Not sure what to take end of next week. GFS has some high heat building in towards the end of the week while the Euro is a bit more reserved. Pretty big differences too between the Euro/GFS at H5 with where the ridge is centered. There looks to be a [weak] cold front which tries pushing across the Northeast later in the week so sort of leaning towards a more reserved (but still hot) Euro look.

Las Vegas got absolutely crushed last night.

Could have been a tree topper

This rain is wild. Severe rain

Super intense rain

Montreal screw job?

Rotation not looking bad at all. Was thinking of Palmer. Only about 20 min away but I hate cutting timing close.

Wish I had time to get to South Hadley or just east ughh

Hoping for a solid hit in Springfield! I can hear thunder

in a tough radar spot. rotation seems perhaps a bit too weak but it's gotta be dropping some hail. Starting to see a slight uptick in intensity as they move through the Hudson Valley. Some decent CAPE and shear...lapse rates are quite poor so that will really limit how much stronger these can get. Probably see this activity pulse up and down through sunset.

Nasty cell near Lake Luzere. Looks to be dropping some hail

We're too quick to judge every weather event as bust or not...and then quick to make a judgement based on what happened in our backyards. Now I don't think there is anything totally wrong with that mindset, but when that mindset is then used to try and justify to a group of people...I think that's problematic. Now at the end of the day if you're going to forecast something as significant as tornadoes or widespread wind damage or a widespread 1-2 foot snowstorm...there really better be something, otherwise the public loses faith, especially if it happens over and over.

yeah it had a pretty evident TDS. Surprised it took a while for the warning to be updated to make mention of radar confirmed.

Part of the problem is perception. Keeping this tied solely to convection when watches are issued and of course with the SPC convective outlooks...these are probabilistic forecasts - meaning they are that...probabilities. It is very difficult to verify probabilistic forecasts. If there is a large say severe thunderstorm watch box that extends from say Maine through New England and maybe into Pennsylvania and New Jersey the majority of people would probably anticipate and expected widespread severe weather or a significant amount of reports within the watch box - but is that really true? Is that a fair assessment to make? All a severe thunderstorm watch means is that atmospheric conditions are favorable (key word) for any thunderstorms which develop to become capable of producing damaging winds, hail > 1'', or a tornado. Now you would expect that there will be at least some of these events within the box. But what accounts for verifying? I'm sure the SPC has a defined criteria which is probably in a publication somewhere but if let's say there were a total of 10-severe reports within that entire watch box, was it really a bust? Anyways and this probably answers the question, but there is a reason why watch boxes probably only get thrown up when there is an expectation for a certain number of reports. But in terms of the SPC probabilities if we have a 10% TOR contour and no TOR's is that really a bust? That defines that there is a 10% probability for a tornado within 25-miles of any point within that contour...or in other words, a 90% probability there will not be a tornado. Obviously in terms of climo that 10% is going to be extremely high...but at the end of the day the probability is still exceedingly low. I wouldn't be surprised if some years from now you see major adjustments with convective forecasting, how it's communicated, and even with probabilities and so forth as the data set grows and we become more sophisticated.

That cell must be interacting with some local boundary

I've reached my attachment quota

Ughhh saying I can’t upload photo. Something about size but it’s a small photo

Looks like a TDS

I think we can all agree some of the numbers being floated around are not going to happen. Unless we saw significant changes regarding the placement of the upper-level ridge (for starters). But if you're looking for a pattern that isn't boring and want some [convective] rain chances the projected look is what you want. Anytime we can end up on the crest (especially downwind) of the upper-level ridge you're in a favorable position for lots of shortwave energy and fronts to move through. While it will certainly be hot and humid there will also be plenty of chances for some convection.

It all really should come down to impact on the public and public awareness. If a thunderstorm in Iowa produced a wind gust of 85-mph which knocked down trees and a few happened to land on peoples homes and a wind gust of 45-50 mph knocked down a few trees which happened to land on peoples homes...they both produced the SAME impact and were a disruption to someone's life and property. If a line of thunderstorms with wind gusts of 50-55 mph went through and produced scattered wind damage along the way resulting in some power outages, road closures, maybe some property damage...who cares that it wasn't a 80-100 mph derecho there was still disruptive impact.

I don't think so but in all seriousness (I know we have the back-and-forth banter with severe ) it's something wouldn't be a bad idea to consider. I think outside of the wind criteria, another measure used is the size of any tree limbs which come down (I think like 4'' or greater in diameter). While we don't get [severity] of thunderstorms like they do out West thunderstorms here tend to be more disruptive and this is obviously related to the greater coverage of trees (which are also heavily weakened) and a higher density of population. One tree taking down power lines can knock out power to hundreds. The toughest aspect I think (and we'll just focus on severe though this can probably be applied to other phenomena too) is trying to separate the scientific aspect vs. public impact. Let's say we get a strong thunderstorm which doesn't look like much at all and it's producing wind gusts of 40-45 mph and knocks down a bunch of trees/power lines across several towns and you have road closures, people without power, maybe a tree fallen into a house...that's going to be a pretty big deal for the impacted areas, but for us it's not that big of a deal because we know what "real storms" look like. Like last week or the week before there were some storms that went through the Albany, NY area and I think resulted in 30K without power. The event overall I didn't think was that impressive or nothing in the category of outbreak but does the thinking change b/c of the impact it had and number of power outages resulted? I don't think number of wind damage reports should be used as a metric to define a severe weather outbreak or event unless; 1) There are numerous measured wind gusts which meet or exceed severe criteria 2) We are able to identify exactly what the dame consists of. For example, with trees. What types of trees are they? If they're all a bunch of weak trees then it's not that crazy but if you're seeing numerous oaks or pines down...well that's impressive.

Looks like the next bust is tomorrow. Forgot about that bust potential. Week flew by

Based on how the NWS and SPC define severe...yes there was. Why do people try and compare thunderstorms here to out West lol. Going to start applying that philosophy to our snow events. Sure our severe events are laughable to what happens out West during the big events...but so are our snow events compared to what other areas of the country get.

There is a growing signal for another round of big heat to push into the region moving through the first week of August. GEFS advertising am extensive ridge across the heart of the country with the 588dm height pushed well into the northern Plains and even moreso the 591dm contour...this is rather impressive. GEFS also showing some big time warmth in the 850mb layer with high anomalies and potential for 850's well over 20C More importantly, given the subtle trough signal over our region, this implies we would be dealing with a westerly to northwesterly flow aloft in the mid-levels...maybe we can get some EML action in here Anyways, as Tip had pointed out several times in the July thread, teleconnections are SCREAMING for a surge of high heat into the region and hopefully with some dews, dews, dews (and severe chances)