Severe Weather 101: Hodograph Basics
This is the thing I get the most questions about. This incredibly useful tool might as well be Greek to the average lay-person. So, I want to demystify it. In this post I’m going to lay out the basics of how a hodograph is constructed. Wind Barbs Wind As A Vector Polar Coordinates The Polar […]
Severe Threat Shifts East on Wednesday
The active pattern is set to end Wednesday, as a widespread severe risk moves into the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. Unlike the last couple of days, there won’t be a cap in the way and storms should have no issue firing within a broad warm sector. Of course, with no cap comes questions of convective […]
Tuesday Severe: Boom or Bust
Rick Smith, Warning Coordination Meteorologist at NWS Norman, put it best on twitter this afternoon. “Conditional: subject to, implying, or dependent upon a condition. Tuesday’s severe weather potential is HIGHLY conditional, and the condition is that we see storms form at all.” Give @ounwcm a follow, he’s a great meteorologist. This really gets to the […]
Monday Severe and Previewing Tuesday
April is living up to its reputation with another multi-day severe weather threat. Tomorrow, we have a slight risk (2/5) running along I30 and up toward Memphis. It is not as apparent as the Tuesday and Wednesday threat, but certainly some hail potential in Dallas (shocking I know…) and a tornado threat into Arkansas. I’m […]
Models (Finally) Converge On Solution. Doesn’t make the forecast any easier.
After a long week of significant differences between the European and GFS, we finally have some agreement this afternoon on timing for the upcoming severe weather. It looks like Wednesday will see the longwave trough eject east and bring the threat of severe weather into the Gumbo Weather region (LA, MS, AL, AR). There are […]
Colorado State Hurricane Forecast
I’ll be back to the severe weather tomorrow, today I want to remind you hurricane season is just around the corner! Yes, “woooooo!” I know. Wait, why are y’all throwing rotten vegetables my way? The main takeaway is they are predicting a more active than normal Atlantic hurricane season. This is not surprising with La […]
About Next Week
The Gulf Coast got away with minimal impacts this week, but there’s another severe set up to come next week. Right now, we have the plains looking to have a couple of days of risk Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday will probably have things shift into the Southeast, but there’s still substantial model spread as to […]
Severe 101: What is shear? Why does it matter?
During the lead up to severe events, you’ll hear two things mentioned a lot. Instability, which tells you about how quickly air would want to accelerate upwards due to buoyancy differences. Also shear, which comes from velocity (which means speed and direction) differences with height in terms of wind within the environment. Shear is what […]
Wednesday Severe Threat Moves To AL/GA For Second Straight Day
After a round of potential severe storms today across southern Alabama, Georgia, and even SC there will be yet another risk for severe weather across Alabama, Georgia, and into southern Appalachia. There is significant uncertainty in terms of how well the atmosphere will recover in the southern parts of Alabama and Georgia following the severe […]