Stormy Week Ahead
Hope everyone is good on sleep...looks like the typical June "Northwest Flow" weather pattern is setting up. It has been awhile since we have seen these classic setups, but we remember what they are like. Typically this is when we get the large bow complex that dives south from Kansas into Oklahoma. These complexes have some hail with them, but usually it is the winds from 70-100mph that can end up being pretty widespread. Since some have expressed a real interest in this weather junk lately, i'll try to throw in some decent information here. It isn't 100% of what people look at for making forecasts, but what I would hope gives people some behind the scenes stuff to look at.
First round gets started tonight.
The Day 1 Outlook: Storm Prediction Center Jun 15, 2008 1630 UTC Day 1 Convective Outlook
NWSFO Norman's Enhanced Weather Page: NWS Norman, Oklahoma - Enhanced Weather Page
Short term forecast model with simulated radar display: http://wwwt.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/mmb/mm...nimate_1h.html
A couple other things worth pointing out...
sbcp
This is just an estimated amount of energy that storms will have to work with. Anything over 1 is considered unstable, thought for severe storms you are really wanting in the area of 2000 or more. On this map, anything with a blue shadding shows where there is something that is currently inhibiting convective development.
xover
Map that shows the winds at the 850MB level and 500MB level. 850MB is a few thousand feet off the ground usually, and 500MB is up in the middle levels...say around 20K feet - but it all depends. Typically if there is decent shear, winds from different directions, that helps with the supercell aspect of storms for hail and tornadoes. Ideally you want a SE wind at 850MB and a W wind at 500MB...but any significant difference can help getting the storms to rotate. For today, not a primary concern at all...though looks like out west may have a better chance for rotating storms along the dryline.
This is verified by this:
scp
That is the Supercell Composite map...showing the better locations for supercell development.
As far as Hail goes...this is a great map here, as it outlines where the best potential is for large hail - especially in the early part of the storm cycle. As we transition to the large storm complexes, the hail chances typically go down.
sigh
Derecho Composite will be one watched today and throughout the week. These are the large, widespread, damaing wind events. Though I've seen the wind events happen with the numbers on this map have been low, it definitely help provides some guidance.
dcp
Lastly with all the rain, flooding will probably happen. Here is a decent map showing how much water is sitting above you.
pwtr
Again...just throwing this stuff out there for people to look at and see how things are forecasted and such. Each forecast mesoanalysis map is updated every hour, so when things may not look great now - they are always changing.
Finishing up by pointing out two time frames on the WRF model for today.
That is for about 6PM tonight, showing the apparent supercell storms out west and developing complex in Kansas.
Around Midnight tonight, the large complex moves into the Metro area.
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Originally Posted by mmonroe
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