Sunday, April 8, 2012

Potential Shelf Cloud-Like Formation

I captured these images of what appears to be of a shelf cloud-like formation.
I am not saying it is a shelf cloud, but the formation is very intriguing.

Regional Severe Weather Outbreak Possible for April 14

The Storm Prediction Center has outlined a 'Day 7' risk for severe weather in Oklahoma and Kansas. Now, before we start, a Day 7 outline is extremely rare. I cannot remember the last time I actually saw a Day 7 outline.

Frontal Positions for Saturday
On Saturday, a warm front looks to be positioned in an arching pattern from Kansas into Minnesota. This will bring up warm, humid air into the region. Again, we see a dry line in western Texas and a cold front soon behind. Judging by moisture transports in the lower levels of the atmosphere and hodograph forecasts, this could be a tornadic situation, especially how the isobars are tightly positioned together in the warm sector (area under the warm front).

-Andrew

Regional Severe Weather Outbreak Possible on April 12

The Storm Prediction Center has outlined a severe weather risk for 'Day 5', this upcoming Thursday. When the SPC outlines areas this far in advance, it usually means they are expecting something 'big' to happen. Don't hold me to it, however, because forecasts are very much due to change.

Frontal positions for Thursday
A storm system looks to be ejecting into the Northern Plains with a warm front stretched down south into Texas. Those open half circles to the left of the warm front indicate the presence of a dry line, where severe thunderstorms are traditionally formed along a dew point difference, which is the dry line. Now, the dry line is meaningless until the cold front arrives and forces warm air to rise and produce thunderstorms.
Given the tight wind field along the warm front, and hodograph observations from the 6z GFS for this timeframe, this event is likely going to contain some intense supercells with some potential tornadic action.

-Andrew