First Multi-Day Severe Event in the Plains?
Chasers! Pack your bags! The almighty ECMWF data says we ride to the southern plains! Next week, namely April 7th – 10th, look primed for a few days of severe weather!
So far the season has been relatively quiet.. Just yesterday the first tornado watches since January were issued.. It’s only the beginning! There has been hints of continued troughs in the models for some time, but they seem to lose their gusto as they approach.. This leads to poor surface response, capping, no good lift, cap, etc… A lot of this is tied to the continued cold air intrusions in the northeast, which is a response possibly to high SST anomalies over the eastern Pacific.. Please see this great article from colleague Victor Gensini
Next week, we look to finally establish troughing in the four corners region and get nearly continuous waves ejecting out onto the plains for a few days. Moisture should already be available with no major frontal intrusions… The lapse rate source region looks good, so instability should not be a problem. Upper level flow is obviously there.. Questions will be jet dynamics, how much surface response occurs, and strength of any waves, which will help with the capping. With those nice lapse rates, comes that warm mid level air!
Fill out those time off requests, move your plans, tell the wife you’re going to be gone a few days and buy her some flowers.. It’s time to film!
Don’t forget, if you need amazing model images, check out HazWx, where most of these images came from! Just $10 a month, can’t beat it!
Drive safe, be safe… I’ll see you next week!
Some images…
