frostfern

Lake Michigan is a major barrier in these weak-flow patterns. Chicago is a wet summer microclimate with ample lake-breeze convergence whenever there is SW flow. SE flow that is moist enough to actually trigger thunder with lake convergence is more rare. SW flow is always the most moist.

The arctic was cooler back then. Climate change is reducing the baroclinicity. These amplified wavy jets, east coast cutoffs, etc.. are garbage for t-storms in lake shadow areas.

Highly amplified patterns seem to be becoming more common. It's either a massive ridge in the center of the CONUS with NW flow, or digging east coast cutoff low. Both scenarios are mostly dry east of Lake Michigan, because the low-level jet is confined either the Upper Mississippi Valley (former case) or High Plains (later case). More zonal patterns that bring interesting weather to the Great Lakes by pulling the low-level jet east are so transient lately.

Don't know if lake breeze cumulus are going to do anything today. Even if storms do fire they'll probably just sit in place instead of moving east and giving inland areas needed rain. Could really use a little more rain here before the death ridge takes total control. Next cold front doesn't come until the 8th or 9th according to the ECMWF.

Storm at South Haven...

Typical. Looks like 2018 repeat.

Editing my footage now. Laptop is kinda old so it's taking a long time to make. I'm guessing winds were in the 55 mph range... so just barely sub-severe. 70 mph gusts were a little south of me.

I drove all the to South Haven waterfront to capture some footage. Glad I went. It was awesome. Marine-layer shelf was so low it was almost touching the water. Nice lightning bolts too. The portion that hit was near the kink in the line with the stronger bowing segment / rear-inflow-jet slamming the shore just a few miles south. Winds were still impressive, though not quite as severe as down towards Benton Harbor. The worst wind seemed to hit directly between Benton Harbor and South Haven, but it would have been hard to find a public location to park the car with a beach view.

MUCAPE is rising into the 2000s even with clouds though. There's a good moisture tongue coming in from Iowa.

The sad thing is some places in the world have managed to keep numbers low without hanging a threat of destitution on millions. The barrier to management in the US is ideological.

Destabilization will have to be entirely by advection.

You better believe lots of people will place blame and not have a lot of sympathy for the selfish.

Could also load up on Lysol. Take a long ass needle and inject it into the lungs as a preventive measure.

If people were willing to fight a virus like they fight a war against an invading army things would be different. Worship of individualism and capitalism is the undoing of the US. Nice for the people who can afford to stock shit and hide in bunkers. People who've been living paycheck to paycheck will come for your ass regardless.

Maybe if the moisture tongue over Iowa gets up here there will be good elevated after-dark boomers. It's just really hard to see anything surfaced based getting this far north now. Unless the 925 mb - 850 mb winds really crank behind the current crapvection complex.

Looks like a stratiform rain event up here. Clouds everywhere. Typical. Don't know what SPC was thinking putting the enhanced risk up here yesterday. Wouldn't be bothered if the long range wasn't so dry and uneventful. Rub it in and give me a weenie.

The downward trend in Michigan is over :(.

I'll take non-severe if it has good lighting. I just don't want EVERYTHING to miss way to the south. Need the rain. I hate these E-W oriented setups where one row of counties gets trained while others get crap.

I'm wondering if the convection won't be surface based up here in Michigan. It will be a warm day, but rather dry. The higher dewpoints come in from the west over the lake late in the day.

Illinois clipper-in-reverse-mode.

Hope this will be a good show.

For western zones maybe. It's hard to say how long it takes for the ridge to build east with the new east coast cutoff clogging things up. Backdoor easterly flow knocking down the ridge looks possible at times. Looks like a warm dry pattern, but intense heat confined to the plains for a while. I just hope Friday night delivers some rain here because after that things get real dry.

It's all relative, but in mid-summer generally the farther west you go the better. This looks like a repeat of 2018, warm but blocky with no ring-of-fire setup until late August. Probably something to do with arctic warming. Stratiform tropical system will be the only drought buster for the lake shadow.

After Friday it's back to the boring blocky pattern.

It became a big MCV / QLCS while crossing Lake Michigan. Wisconsin always gets the peak severe, but sometimes the late night leftovers here in Michigan are still good. Most times the Wisconsin evening MCS just dies completely, then afternoon stuff pops way to the east the next day. Annoying aspect of summer climatology here. The severe stuff often survives through west Michigan though. It's just when there aren't severe setups with good shear and/or low-level-jet the lake shadow dominates.