Weather Blog

StormTALK! Monday Edition

A busy few days ahead for us as we track showers/storms moving through the area.  While we are not expecting what those to the west have witnessed (or will witness this evening) we certainly could have watches/warnings in our area as this system passes through.

I will start off in reverse with this post...getting right to the overall summary of what is expected.  Then I will post some graphics with details.  The reason? The details vary quite a bit...but I at least wanted to share them.

OVERALL SETUP:
This afternoon/evening:  Hazy/Humid/Very Warm.  How close we get to the record of 91 is still in question.  Either way, humidity will make it feel like it out there.  There is still a risk for an isolated strong/severe storm that could pop later today.  They would be brief/slow moving...but could pack a punch for whoever falls under it.  We will keep an eye on the radar trends.

Overnight:  a line of storms will make a run for us from the west.  Latest data still strongly suggests that the line will weaken as it approaches I 65.  In fact, some of the models only indicate clouds surviving this far east...fading the rain out fast.  I would make sure to tune into Kevin tonight at 11pm for an update ...especially for those of you say from Jasper to Paoli.

Tuesday morning through midday:  overall---looks pretty quiet.  There still may be a risk for those showers mentioned above...but this looks to be the lowest rain chance part of the day. 

Tuesday afternoon:  We become quite unstable.  This is where the NAM/GFS do vary.  NAM suggest a setup that could support spotty afternoon development.  Especially across southern IN and west of I 65 in KY.  GFS delays any impact from storms until sunset or later.  This is a case of how much sunshine we pick up during the morning/midday.  If it is sunny out...I would not rule out afternoon storms popping.  There is quite a bit of energy at play...all we need is at trigger.  So we will be watching tomorrow afternoon very closely.

Overnight Tuesday/early Wednesday:  This could be an active period. Showers/storms rolling through.  However, instability will be lower.  That may help keep the intensity in check.  There is some decent wind energy passing overhead at this time---so severe threat is certainly possible.

Wednesday afternoon:  This is a transition day in which the best wind energy heads more into OH.  We may see clouds limiting our heating/instability quite a bit on this day.  While some gusty storms are possible...there are more players on the field to help keep the severe coverage lower during this period.

Thursday afternoon: the main cold front finally pushes in from the north.  If we get any sun, some stronger storms may be possible on the KY side of the Ohio River in the early afternoon.  This is a narrow window of potential however as dry air will quickly overtake the area by afternoon and evening.

So there you have it.  That is a best guess right now on how things look to evolve.  But as always when it comes to severe storms in our area....small changes in the ingredients and change the outcome.  Our main threats will be large hail (especially Tuesday) ...damaging winds...heavy rain...and very intense lightning.  Tornado threat is there...but low.  Nothing like what people have faced the past few days in the Plains. 

Here are some graphics to explain in more detail.

First...SPC outlooks:

TUESDAY:  SLIGHT RISK

% POTENTIAL:  15% with 30% not far away. 

Winds Aloft:

GFS: not impressive                       NAM: a bit stronger..esp IN

                        

CAPES (instability) :

GFS : not overly high                NAM: more than 2500, that is high.

                   

                        

RADAR-=-- NAM...TUES NIGHT

WEDNESDAY:  SLIGHT RISK (esp north/east)

Winds aloft:

GFS - stronger winds head NE        NAM

                            

CAPES:

GFS- low values, but there         NAM-- very similar to GFS

                     

THURSDAY :  No Risk from SPC

There will be a risk for gusty storms..mainly across KY in the early afternoon hours.

 

Then we get to the holiday weekend.

The issue here will be how low do we go Friday or Saturday night?  Some of the recent data the air looks dry enough that upper 40s are possible.  Highs may be limited to the 60s north...but 70s for the majority of the area.  It should feel great!!

There are signs that a warm front will surge north Memorial Day or that Tuesday.

If that happens...we could set up for a strong NW flow that may lead to MCS' (complexes of storms) to ride that flow.  Will it aim toward us...or stay just to our north?!!??

Too early to make that call but needs to be watched.

Nevertheless, the heating that will take place with this warm front looks intense.  We may be talking about several days in the 90s ahead as we approaching the first of June.

 

Never Let Them See You Sweat!

We could be headed to a record high today!  It will be a hot and humid day... the hottest of the year so far.  Temperatures will start cooling back down tomorrow through the weekend with storms headed our way.

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  The Plain States suffered through an outbreak of severe storms and tornadoes yesterday, and unfortunately they will have another threat of severe weather again today.  In WAVE Country, we will see this storms from this same system starting tomorrow through Thursday.

We have a chance of storms tomorrow, and we will be watching for the risk of severe storms with large hail and damaging winds as the main threat.

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We will still be on alert Wednesday for the potential of severe storms as the cold front pushes through our area.  Again large hail and damaging winds will be the main threat.

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These storms are going to drop some heavy rain from time to time, but we don't expect any major flooding with this system.  Most of our area will get around 0.75" - 1" total through Thursday morning.

StormTALK! Sunday Night Edition

Pretty quiet around here...compared to the Plains states.

Of course, Larue/Hardin counties were the exception today with the large hailstorm that impacted you guys around 5pm.

Thanks for all the pics and videos!!  Melissa posted this one from Hodgenville earlier on our facebook page.

Now we get into 3 big stories in the days ahead.

1) Record Heat Potential
2) Severe Storm Potential
3) Lows in the 40s?

Quite the range there.

RECORD HEAT POTENTIAL:

Record high for Louisville tomorrow is 91 set back in 1934.  The amount of warm air aloft tomorrow is plentiful.  This should allow for quite a warm/hot day for the area.  The models have fluctuated with 88 to as high as 92 for a high the past week for Monday.  I think 92 is certainly reachable...and obviously would break the old record.  We shall see.

With all the heat, the atmosphere will have high amounts of CAPES (energy) for storm development.

BUT, we have warming aloft..which limits the size of the cumulus clouds...and no obvious trigger.  While I think most of us will stay dry and hot, I need to urge caution (just like today) that any small trigger/boundary could fire up an isolated strong/severe storm.  Coverage looks 10%...but just like today, that 10% could be over you.  We will keep an eye on it.

SEVERE STORM POTENTIAL:  * no SPC outlooks for our area the next few days...that may change*
The models have been insistant that storms will try to make a run for us late tomorrow night.

However they will run into the effects of the high pressure (as mentioned above) and look what the models show happens to them by sunrise Tuesday...poof...gone.

That seems reasonable right now.  So not too concerned with late tomorrow night/early Tuesday..but those of you from Jasper to Paoli may need to be alert just in case they get toooo far east before fading.

Tuesday looks to be another high heating day.  But, there will be colder air working in aloft.  Especially across western and northern sections. NAM shows the risk for storms popping in the afternoon.

Those could be severe with damaging winds/very intense lightning/large hail/very heavy rain.  While coverage does not look widespread, I do think this will be our highest chance of the week for warnings.  Something to monitor.  If you manage to stay rain-free in your backyard Tuesday---you may hit 90 degrees again.

Wednesday, the front pushes into the area.  We have better wind energy for severe.

But...the instability is lowerthanks to cloud cover. 

We have to have all the ingredients line up for severe weather outbreaks...and Tuesday and Wednesday have different ingredients for each day.  If we end up with sunshine Wednesday, I would be expected more of a severe threat...but right now---signs of clouds are pretty strong with the data.  Any sun breaks look more likely across southern KY.  We will watch it.

Another cold front will slide in Thursday.  Showers/storms with that front.

Then we prepare for very dry air this holiday weekend.

Low temps may drop into the upper 40s away from the city limits Saturday night.  Dry air heats pretty fast this time of the year, so I am not buying the model outputs of 60s for highs right now..I think we can easily jump from 48 or so to mid 70s with full sun.  We can fine-tune when we get closer.

There is a warm front expected near Memorial Day.  That may bring back a rain chance---but we will leave that alone for right now.

(5/19) Storm Chase - Day 6: Wrap Up

It's been a crazy 48 hours and I'm just now able to post about my last day of storm chasing from Friday. We got back to Oklahoma City at 2am on Saturday after quite a long chase day in Texas. My flight for Louisville left at 7am that same morning so you can imagine how tired I was yesterday during my trip home! It was worth it though because we saw a great storm south of Wichita Falls, TX to top off our 2,621 mile chase through Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. Check out the detailed map of our chase route!

 

 

On Friday afternoon a cluster of supercell storms blew up along the dryline just south of Wichita Falls, TX, almost exactly at the time and location that the HRRR model indicated they would (click here for my Friday afternoon weather briefing). The best winds and temperatures for tornadic development were just north of where these storms fired up so we waited a bit to see if a storm would form in that environment before dropping south to intercept the cluster south of Wichita Falls. While a storm did try to form in the more favorable area to our north it failed to sustain itself and dissipated. By this time the storms to just to our south had consolidated into a huge stationary supercell storm, so south we went!

 

 

As we approached the north side of the storm we saw four small funnel clouds, with the two most visible ones pictured to the right. While this is not typically part of a supercell that you would see funnel clouds and tornadoes, we still had the remnant rotation of one of the supercell storms that had just merged with the main one embedded in the northern side of the now larger storm. Long story short, lots of small funnels popped up in that part of the storm before everything congealed completely from the previous mergers.

 

 

After the funnels we continued south through the storm to get to the main updraft base where tornado formation was taking place. The problem was that it took us quite a bit of time to find a route around the main hail core of the storm. We kept having to turn around and take a different road as we ran into hail that was becoming a safety hazard due to its size. Our vehicle windows could have easily been shattered had we continued down some of these routes. We valued our safety over the time it took to get to the updraft of the storm, which you should always do as a storm chaser. Unfortunately that meant missing out on the pair of small tornado touchdowns that happened just before we got to the tornadic updraft. But, being able to see the updraft base that dropped multiple wall clouds against a spectacular sunset was awe-inspiring. A slideshow from Friday is below.

 

Ryan Hoke

HOTTEST TEMPS OF THE YEAR BRING STORMS

FOGGY START...

TODAY...

A few pop up storms will be possible now through this evening, primarily to the South and East of the metro. Any storms that do develop will produce heavy rain & thousands of lightning strikes. They may become locally strong, too. Most of us stay dry today, and warm too - highs in the mid 80s.

STORM CHANCE...

HEATING UP...

The hottest temperatures of the year will arrive tomorrow ahead of our next rain maker. Expect highs to top out near 90 under partly cloudy skies. We'll keep a 10% storm chance in the forecast tomorrow - but the main story will be the heat. Heat index will be in the low 90s tomorrow. As the front gets closer Tuesday we'll keep the heat around, with more widespread storms come Tuesday and into Wednesday. We'll watch the potential of that front...strong to severe storms look possible at this point, but being a few days out we'll keep a close eye on it. Stay tuned to Wave 3 and wave3.com for the latest.

StormTALK! Saturday Edition

Lots of outdoor events scheduled today...not to mention birthday and graduation parties!!

The rain chance today is about 60%. But that will be a very spotty 60%.  We have moisture at play..you can feel that when you walk outside.  We just need a trigger to set off showers.  One of those is a weakening low pressure crossing southern KY.  The other..would be any sunbreaks that develop.  So it makes it a huge challenge to pick out the when/where of these tiny showers/storms.  Nevertheless, I would not cancel any plans---just be aware and have a safe spot to run to if any downpours and lightning develop.  Any downpour look brief.   Storm motion today is southeast to north.  So look south for any darkening skies.

Here is the HRRR model for 2pm today.  You can see how spotty it is.  Highest chance across IN and central/east KY.

By 6pm...pretty much the same spots at risk for spotty downpours/lightning.

by 9pm...activity is still there..but should start to fade as we lose one of the triggers (sunlight).

SUNDAY will feature a growing influence of warm air aloft.  Remember, you need warm air at the surface, cold air aloft...for thunderstorms.  If you have warm over warm--you get a "capped" atmosphere and storm development is very difficult.  So as the warm air moves in aloft...the storm chances will decrease some on Sunday.  This also means we heat up...well into the 80s.

MONDAY....this will be the max heating at the surface and aloft.  We because very unstable as far as CAPES for this day, but with the warm air aloft...that should keep the area capped from storms developing.  If the cap is weaker than forecast---- then we could have some isolated severe storms rapidly develop.  But again, the thinking is the cap will hold.  Highs of 88-93 looking more and more likely.

TUESDAY-- this is another day in which the cap is strong, but weakens.  This may allow storms to fire.  If they do, some could be briefly strong.  If the cap is stronger than expected, we may squeeze out yet another 90 degree day with little if any storm activity.  Just too early to tell.  GFS shows weak cap...EURO shows stronger cap.

WEDNESDAY--this is when the front moves through. No cap to protect us this time as colder air moves in aloft.  Showers/storms increase.  For this..we look more in depth at severe parameters.

CAPES are somewhat workable....around 1000 J/kg...but cloud cover likely will keep this number around that if not lower.

WINDS are not overly strong, except across IN.

EHI scans also show a small tornado threat across IN.

So while an outbreak is not likely, a few strong wind gusts are possible with the storms on Wednesday. Heavy rain/lightning may be the bigger issues.

TO SUM IT UP--- Spotty showers/storms today.  Smaller chance Sunday, warmer Sunday.  Hot weather Monday (if storm break the cap, severe likely), Tuesday, another potential hot day with a few strong storms possible.  Wednesday, main rain event...showers/storms ..likely.  A few strong ones possible.

It is worth noting that the combination of the heat/wind/ehi scans in the Plains States this weekend is pretty high.  It looks like a significant tornado outbreak developing for that area of the country. Let's hope they get through all of that safely.  Thankfully for us, the system will weaken as it approaches.

 

Slow severe weather season so far, but it only takes one

Now here is a tornado on radar earlier this week SW of Dallas!

Classic hook echo, ended up being an EF 4 and sadly 6 fatalities. Happily this has been thee xception and not the rule as it has been a slow severe season so far. Why? Well the most obvious answer is it has not been anywhere near as warm as last year. March through Mid May in some cases has averaged almost 15 degrees colder than 2012. The jet stream has been in a more winter mode until recently with record snows in the northern Plains this month. It is starting to get more active in the middle of the country, but it may be awhile before or even if it translates here. While the short term does look warmer into early next week, the winds have weakened and no triggers for svr storms are evident in the Ohio Valley. The winds at jet stream level may pick up again later next week but it also looks cooler and drier at that time. I guess June may have to be the more active month this year... unless we go straight to summer.

Preakness Weather... scattered showers are possible temperatures in the 70'.. ORB, Mylute and Goldensense are my top 3

(5/17) Storm Chase - Day 6: Down to the Wire

This is the last day of my storm chase out here in the Great Plains. Yesterday we went to the Shreveport, Louisiana area to chase storms but came up short when a line of showers and storms gave birth to a supercell thunderstorm that raced through our target area early on. This contaminated the environment for further storm development before we got there so we were out of luck. While we have to be in Oklahoma City tonight, we're on our way westward through Texas now where we'll hopefully chase a storm or two that forms on the dryline this afternoon. The Storm Prediction Center saw fit to issue a Slight Risk of severe weather for areas of Central Texas due to this potential. This risk area includes a 2% tornado probability.

 

The reason why we initially weren't sure if we were going to chase today is because of capping, or the presence of an inhibiting layer of warm air above the surface. If this capping is too strong then storms don't form. But, if capping is just weak enough to let the strongest updrafts of air through to form storms then they will be isolated and easier to chase. That's the thinking today and the short-range HRRR model agrees as it produces a small line of storm cells from the Wichita Falls, TX area southward this afternoon.

 

Lots of moisture is available for this setup today and winds at the surface near and north of a dryline bulge will help to increase shear. For those who don't know, the dryline is the divider between moist air to the east and dry air to the west, acting like a moisture or dew point front. Winds aloft aren't really impressive today so storms won't last too long into the evening. Large hail and damaging winds will be the main threats from these storms but I can't rule out a tornado or two if a storm ramps up quickly enough to produce one before it dissipates. We're in position just south of Wichita Falls now and will be ready when the storms form. Follow me on Twitter and Facebook for constant updates!

 

Ryan Hoke

   

(5/16) Storm Chase - Day 5: ArkLaTex Chase Today

It's a somber moring for us as we make our way eastward for today's storms. Last night and this morning we were saddened to hear of the destruction from the supercell storms that developed east of us in Texas. NWS Dallas/Fort Worth has a preliminary count of ten tornadoes causing six fatalities and numerous injuries. We did not chase these storms since our policy is to not chase storms that close to the I-35 corridor due to traffic difficulties and visibility issues with terrain. Our thoughts are with
all of those affected by these terrible storms last night. (Photo from NWS Dallas/Fort Worth)


We did see some severe storms yesterday near Archer City, TX, which is just south of Wichita Falls. These had some intense structure to them but they were clustered too close together and in a less favorable upper-level wind environment than those to the east of our area. These storms had frequent lightning with deep, rolling thunder, large hail, and lots of heavy rain. Below is a slideshow of some photos I took as we chased these into the evening hours of last night.

Arkansas/Texas/Louisiana Today

Our chase takes us eastward today as we follow an upper-level low across parts of Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana. Not only does this low give us instability but it also allows winds to be out of the southwest aloft. These winds will encourage supercell storm development today, much like they did yesterday in Texas.

Winds down at the surface will also be favorable for severe storms. The southeasterly winds that we have now and will continue to see today will increase the amount of moisture flowing into Southern Arkansas and the surrounding areas while also creating low-level wind shear for storms to sustain themselves.




One issue we do have right now is an area of showers and storms moving along the Texas/Oklahoma border. These are dissipating rather quickly though so instability will be allowed to build again this afternoon as these storms and clouds clear out. How quickly this happens exactly will determine the actual severity of the storms this afternoon and evening.

The Storm Prediction Center has parts of the ArkLaTex under a Slight Risk of severe weather this afternoon. This carries with it a 5% tornado probability and 15% hail and wind probabilties. The area of potential severe weather is so small today because the upper low is compact. Nevertheless we're in South Central Oklahoma now and will make our way eastward this afternoon as we see conditions come together. Remember to follow me on Twitter and Facebook for up-to-the-minute chase updates today.

Ryan Hoke

   

StormTALK! Wednesday

Warmest day of the year at 88° today.  Record is safe...at 92.

While it will stay warm, we look for the radar to start to get a little more active in the coming days.

There is a cold front to our north...very easy to pick out on the visible satellite.  You can see how thin it is ...due to limited moisture.

Nevertheless, it will sag closer to us late tonight/Thursday.  A few storms expected along this front.  The main flow is to the south/east along the front.

There may be an outflow boundary that develops from the storms that may spark new development from Louisville to Lexington in the afternoon hours tomorrow.  Some briefly heavy.

This front will then lift more to the north/east over the weekend.  But we will have a few impulses around that could lead to scattered showers/storms. However, the vort max that was on the GFS yesterday...is gone today ..for Saturday night.

So we remain will a low storm chance at this time.  I still would not rule out an impulse moving through Saturday to spark off storms. 

Monday still looks to be a very warm day with highs well into the 80s...nearing 90.  The front that is slated for Tuesday...may be a bit slower...arriving late Tuesday or evening Wednesday.  If that holds...Tuesday may also see highs near 90.  Just all about timing at this point.

When will then cool off a bit for late week..but to near normal.  There are signs of another cutoff low developing over the SE US.  But that is a new trend in the models..and discounted for right now.

I do think the tropics will be heating up the last week of May.  Especially for the the SE coastal areas.