Saturday, March 7, 2009

Gear tester?

Checking the models for tonight, we may see a small shot at some severe thunderstorm activity in central Illinois tomorrow. The models had been wanting to speed the system into Ohio by mid-afternoon, but seems to want to slow it down for a bit which if true, would bode well for our chances at robust convection. It will take some convincing for me to believe this setup however, as it is fairly new on this run.

The most likely scenario we will see in central Illinois, is a continuation of the svr activity in Missouri at the moment in the morning hours with an attendant severe wind and hail threat.

Should the system continue to slow it's pace, we may see enough time for a clearing ahead of the surface low in the central part of the state by around the noon hour. Should this come to fruition, we will likely see marginal instability set into the area with sbcape values setting in around 750 j/kg2. Wind fields will strongly increase as the jet streak punches into the area mid-afternoon, with largely unidirectional wind fields ruling the day. However, near the warm front some backing in the lower levels will be present, and coupled with some diurnal heating could be enough for supercell structures. Any supercell that can form in this region would have at least a marginal tornado threat.

Looking further out, a more substantial threat seems to exist across the Mid-Mississippi Valley on Tuesday afternoon. The frontal boundary that is currently draped across the region will once again lift north as a warm front across northern Missouri, southern Iowa and Illinois. The models aren't very reliable at this point, but they are showing moderate instability along and south of this warm front and ahead of the newly developed surface low. Specifics are pointless at this point, but should a steady trend be realized in the models we could see a decent shot at supercell and tornado activity across that tri-state region on Tuesday evening.

I will likely be testing out the live streaming client that I'll be running in partnership with Tornadovideos.Net, and Weather Data Technologies, so check in for that.

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