frostfern

On radar it looked at least as strong as the Gaylord tornado last year. Only a tiny part of that path was rated EF-3. The trailer park wreckage was horrific and deadly, but it was only rated EF-2 since that’s just what happens to trailers in a tornado.

Where do you live? It seems there are only two locations being evaluated in the GRR region, Webberville in Ingham County and Belmont in Kent County. Reviewing the radar loops both of them were associated with brief supercells being absorbed into the line from the front.

Oh no! You didn’t lose any trees did you? There were trees down everywhere in southern Ionia CO. I ended up south of Portland and it was developing on top of me before I could find anywhere with a view. The area was so woodsy and branches and limbs were everywhere. When I got back to I-96 I thought I was home free but then there was 1.5 hour traffic delay from trees across I-96. I didn’t dare try an alternate route. There was a tornado warning back at my parent’s place and the sirens went off. They went to the basement, but the possibly tornadic circulation was quite a ways northeast and none of us even lost power.

Big tree across I96

Stuck in a traffic. Debris on the road.

I decided to chase and MBY got slammed. lol. I got screwed because new cells popped up ahead of the line and slowed me down so much I couldn’t get ahead. It caught up. Derecho chasing is just impossible. Incredible lighting but hard to see bolts due to so much rain.

Should fill in soon.

It was weird seeing light fog at a temperature of 82 earlier today.

My guess is the stuff around Milwaukee will struggle to move out over the lake because of lake breeze divergence at peak heating, but new convection will form along 131 just north of I-96 around 7 or 8 pm and move southeast.

There is a subtle wave at 700 mb over eastern WI. The 700 mb temp drops slightly just ahead of it indicating lift. I think we have to wait for that to cross the lake.

I don't know how I missed it. There is some cumulus popping up in the middle of Lake Michigan now.

There is initiation in Wisconsin now. A good sign that the cap is breakable. I wonder if SPC will extend the risk there. Hopefully they are writing up a mesoscale discussion.

I have time to chase. Just waiting. The sun is coming out and the dewpoint is in the lower 80s with mist in the air. Feels like walking through a warm wet washcloth.

MUCAPE to the west was peaking around 5000 J/kg into the wee hours of the morning. That is insane for this area. There was also a modest E-W oriented low level jet aimed right into it. It intuitively reminded me of a flame building backwards into the fuel.

This continues the trend for here this spring/summer. Not all the models were showing that line, but its frustrating the ridge wins out the one time you don’t want it to. There’s plenty of CAPE, but its just hard to get convection going with +12 at 700hpa. The upper 70s dewpoints are still on the way though. Oh boy. What fun.

Its hard to get 80 degree dews here with the cooler lake and lack of corn directly to the southwest, but 75+ dewpoints may creep in here tomorrow evening for the first time all summer. I remember some upper 70s dews in early June last year and the year before which was unusual. I don’t think the corn wasn’t anywhere near full grown then. This year its barely gotten above 70 and most days its been in the upper 50s or low 60s. Its been very comfortable compared to some years.

It seems like there's some high level smoke yet again along with the cirrus shield today. Maybe it's just pollution trapping due to the massive warm front cap aloft. Sky is that odd milky yellow color.

Hope to see an MCS come crashing in from the north on Wednesday.

Mid 30s dewpoints in Iowa in August doesn’t even seem climatologically possible without antecedent drought conditions.

ECMWF is way better for me, so long as it doesn’t trend any more SW with the boundary. It has a ridge rider pattern.

Would be nice to get one solid storm before the warmth is gone.

Ready 2 soak.

Where are you? I’m seeing massive towering clouds all over the eastern sky. Hard to believe they are actually a long ways away. Its not quite dark enough to see the lightning yet from here.

I’m having trouble looking forward to winter. Last year had some huge lake effect storms that made people not in the lake effect zones jealous, but there were also a ton of days with solid clouds and temps in the 30s. The constant darkness and gloom just gets to me after a while. I love snowstorms, but I get really tired of the endless gloomy periods.

The high yesterday was 65 at midnight. It stayed between 61 and 64 all day during daylight hours with a thick cloud deck pretty much at ground level, along with drizzle and showers. Rained 0.6”.