There is another enhanced risk for severe weather today, this time ranging from the Texas Panhandle to south central Kansas. Surely, storm chasers are once again going to be out there, probably starting in Amarillo and getting their steak, then tracking east with the storms. For my money, the short term models seems to be favoring development in the late evening in Stillwater and Ponca City, in northern Oklahoma. Were I chaser, that’s where I would go. But I’m not! Good luck if you are.
Coming Soon…
I’m hoping that these coming days will see some regular action around the country, both with posts on the site, and mildly intriguing weather patterns.
Bend, Oregon
Road Trip from Bend to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Houston, Texas
Killeen, Texas
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Road Trip from Killeen to Albuquerque
Road Trip from Albuquerque to Anderson, Indiana
Fairbanks, Alaska
State College, Pennsylvania
I hope everyone has been enjoying the Northern Lights where they have been available. Now, we’re going to take a forecast trip to one of the homes of our forecast competitors, Accuweather.
At 853PM, ET, State College was reporting a temperature of 55 degrees with mostly cloudy skies. A shortwave moved through the region last night and through the morning, and scattered showers have now departed the area as the wave attempts to merge with a large feature off shore. This will give State College a bit of dry weather through tomorrow morning.
The next couple of features are coming from the Canadian Prairies, where a weak boundary is sliding through, while a stronger feature in the High Plains is emerging from the south. The cold front will drape north of the Pennsylvania border for most of the day on Monday, which will mean cloudy skies and chances for rain, but the feature rising from the southwest will bring more moisture and instability to the region. It is liable to be rainier with a chance of thunderstorms throughout Tuesday.
Tomorrow – Mostly cloudy with a spot of rain possible, High 74, Low 47
Tuesday – Scattered showers with embedded thunderstorms, High 68, Low 55
TWC: Tomorrow – A few clouds early, otherwise mostly sunny High 73, Low 50
Tuesday – Generally sunny. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 72, Low 46
AW: Tomorrow – Pleasant and warmer with times of clouds and sun High 75, Low 43
Tuesday – Cloudy and not as warm with a couple of showers High 68. Low 53
NWS: Tomorrow – Patchy fog before 10am. Otherwise, mostly sunny High 76, Low 42
Tuesday – A chance of showers, then showers and possibly a thunderstorm after 2pm. high 71, Low 54
WB: Tomorrow – Mostly sunny, High 74, Low 45
Tuesday – Mostly cloudy. A chance of showers in the morning, then showers in the afternoon, High 67, Low 55
WN: Tomorrow – Mostly sunny, High 74, Low 43
Tuesday – Mostly cloudy with light showers and chance of storms, High 71, Low 55
CLI: Tomorrow – Clear, High 75, Low 44
Tuesday – Rain Showers, High 68, Low 54
I’m the only one with rain potentially for Monday. It feels like rain should fall on Mondays, right? Here is the sattelite, showing the field of clouds, drifting away and clearing the way for new rain.
Gigantic hail possible in New Mexico
This cell with potentially 3″ hail is moving southeast of Santa Rosa. Fortunately, the area is sparsely populated, so we won’t have any car dealerships losing their supply of cars, or anything like that.
Organization harder to come by
After a few particularly miserable weeks, if some models are to be believed (and important people are believing them) we might actually be able to come up for air next week. There isn’t a well put together system to be found in the near future, and beyond what, say, the NAM has to offer, it kind of gets into silly territory anyways. The SPC just has marginal risks the next three days, and after that, not a thing. There will be some sultry air mass type of storms in the southern US, and certainly there could be a strong one in there somewhere, but not the widespread chaos of the last several weeks. Hooray!
There should be May flowers around here somewhere
Muncie had a rainy end to the month of April. Steadier rain fell on the 29th, the final Monday of the month, but there was still a enough to measure a hundredth of an inch on the 30th. Highs in the 70s gave a taste of spring to the region, and while overnight lows were balmy, they were a hair below expectations. Ultimately, the spot with the coolest low is the winner. That so happens to be Victoria-Weather.
Actuals: Monday April 29th – .29″ of rain, High 73, Low 61
Tuesday, April 30th – .01″ of rain, High 74, Low 59
Grade: A-C
This is definitely more of a warning about the temperature than the water. It’s usually pretty chilly in the waterways of the Pacific Northwest.
Yesterday’s storms were, in one way, well behaved
These are the storm reports from yesterday, featuring a whopping 762 reports stretching from their origin in southern Missouri and following a wave through Tennessee into downstate North Carolina. You really couldn’t have asked for a more organized storm system. Usually, you see a few disparate tracks of short lived storm, but this one set up in Missouri and just kept on trucking. The other reports aren’t even in conjunction with the main batch. It’s not just the tornado outbreaks that are strong thunderstorms.
Also, I know we are overdue for a couple of verifications, but our last two forecasts were in Muncie and Goldsboro. Nice work by this complex to avoid our towns. It was a lot closer to Muncie the day before, when tornadoes started in the Kalamazoo area and stretched south along the Ohio-Indiana border
The various complexities of NWS life
I take two days of forecast data and regurgitate here, but there is obviously a lot that goes into being a National Weather Service Meteorologist. Or maybe it isn’t so obvious. Take a look at the exhaustive briefing from the Lincoln office of the NWS.
April was toasty in North Dakota
Not something you always associate with North Dakota, but the NWS in Grand Forks noted that many sites in the eastern part of the state were 3-4 degrees warmer than normal for the month.