2026 Mid-Atlantic Severe Storm General Discussion

[yoda]

DCA at 00z Tuesday 12z NAM 

 

[Kmlwx]

The CAMs (to varying degrees) all have decent amounts of storm coverage too - unlike some of the prior events recently. 

[vortex95]

16 hours ago, high risk said:

Monday has my attention.     The parameter space won't be high end, but we should have modest instability, deep layer shear, and dynamics.   Timing of day is good.     And there are even suggestions of some low-level shear, potentially eventually leading to 5% TOR outlook.

I've noticed that if a 5% tor risk is present, that almost always means a tor watch is issued.

[mappy]

Methinks we won’t be playing softball tomorrow night 

[Kmlwx]

I'm more "in" on this one than the prior events. It could still fizzle - and I certainly don't think it's going to be an "outbreak" - but storm coverage has higher confidence it seems - and the shear does raise some eyebrows!

Also I'll be in the office - which seems to guarantee good storms (my office is in the core of the building with no windows - so I essentially miss anything that happens during cool events). 

[vortex95]

1 hour ago, Kmlwx said:

The CAMs (to varying degrees) all have decent amounts of storm coverage too - unlike some of the prior events recently. 

HRRR and RRFS have meaty storms and in two distinct waves.  However, CAPE is rather low for this time of year for a svr event.  Hodographs look better on the NAM/HRRR but not so much on the RRFS.

0-3 km CAPE is lacking on the HRRR and RRFS, so I have to wonder about tor potential.

It is fairly strong s/w for June passing just to our N and overall wind fields are good, so perhaps the dynamical part will make up for the rather low CAPE and that's why the HRRR and RRFS show meaty storms.  PWATs ramp up nicely during the day.  K-indices fcst get to upper 30s so likely big rain producers.

[Kmlwx]

2 minutes ago, vortex95 said:

HRRR and RRFS have meaty storms and in two distinct waves.  However, CAPE is rather low for this time of year for a svr event.  Hodographs look better on the NAM/HRRR but no so much on the RRFS.

0-3 km CAPE is lacking on the HRRR and RRFS, so I have to wonder about tor potential.

It is fairly strong s/w for June passing just to our N and overall wind fields are good, so perhaps the dynamical part will make up for the rather low CAPE and that's why the HRRR and RRFS show meaty storms.  PWATs ramp up nicely during the day.  K-indices fcst get to upper 30s so likely big rain producers.

I've heard (usually from @high risk ) that the HRRR tends to overmix out low level moisture - could that be a factor here?

[Kmlwx]

FWIW - the 12z CSU MLP maps have reduced quite a bit. 

[batmanbrad]

not much change in the newest SPC day 2 outlook for our area, they held the TOR prob at 2% and mentioned too much uncertainty about degree of destabilization to warrant upgrading to 5%

[SnowenOutThere]

2 hours ago, vortex95 said:

HRRR and RRFS have meaty storms and in two distinct waves.  However, CAPE is rather low for this time of year for a svr event.  Hodographs look better on the NAM/HRRR but not so much on the RRFS.

0-3 km CAPE is lacking on the HRRR and RRFS, so I have to wonder about tor potential.

It is fairly strong s/w for June passing just to our N and overall wind fields are good, so perhaps the dynamical part will make up for the rather low CAPE and that's why the HRRR and RRFS show meaty storms.  PWATs ramp up nicely during the day.  K-indices fcst get to upper 30s so likely big rain producers.

Its the RRFS but man those are some nasty updraft helicity tracks. Most I've seen for this area on any model. 

[SnowenOutThere]

2 hours ago, Kmlwx said:

I've heard (usually from @high risk ) that the HRRR tends to overmix out low level moisture - could that be a factor here?

It mixes tomorrow into the upper 50s for dewpoints, NAM stays in the mid to upper 60s. 

[Ellinwood]

15/5/2 wind/hail/tor on the 06z Day 1... seems reasonable, but I could see a bump up to 30/5/5 this afternoon (no hatches) once we see how things are actually playing out coverage-wise. More confident with the wind coverage bump up than the tor. Shear's there, but the mid-to-high cloud cover loves messing up our setups.