We aren’t out of snow season yet!

Sure, yes, the forecast snow, in this case showing the chance of 8″ over a three day stretch through Tuesday evening, is confined to the mountains, but it is still snow, and still an ample amount of snow, especially in northern California. That means busy weather, moisture aloft and yes, cold air at some level. This will translate to severe weather when the feature hits the Plains.

Wind is howling through the plains

Low pressure moving through the Northern Plains today, in addition to bringing the threat for severe weather in the south and clouds to eclipse viewers for a lot of the country, is bringing some very gusty winds to some parched sections of the central US.

The Weather Service in Goodland called for hurricane force winds, and observations throughout the region are right there, with gusts over 50mph in many locales.

Severe weather now will lead to more tomorrow

There have been quite a few severe storms this evening, from Indiana to Texas, including super cells with detected tornadoes and very large hail. St. Louis was in a tornado warning, and some suburbs saw 2″ diameter hail. There had been a moderate risk for severe weather over Oklahoma that has since been allowed to transition to an enhanced risk, but again, tomorrow, we are looking at a moderate risk, with the bullseye over a different “o” state – Ohio.

It’s absolutely severe season now, so this shouldn’t be a surprise. Be weather aware throughout the Buckeye State and even points south to the Florida Panhandle. Strong, long lived tornadoes are most likely, however, in that red shaded areas.

This warning is pointed the wrong way

As we learned from our last update, today is the only day to be concerned with rain in the Tampa area. To the north off the coast from Cedar Key, the NWS has issued a Marine Warning that looks strange.

Polygons usually expand through the expected storm motion to account for the potential variability of the track. Instead, this one narrows around the storm motion. That’s just a backwards polygon is what that is.

At this point, most of the precipitation in southern Minnesota is falling as rain, and even then, there is a dry slot right over the Twin Cities metro area that isn’t being picked up well by models. Right now, the NAM model has among the better solutions, but the best bet is looking at the short range models. One thing all of them are consistent on is a reformed area of low pressure and another blast of nasty, and this time windy, conditions overnight.