Update about the t-storm potential for the rest of today into tomorrow: If you saw my post on here from a few days ago, I was talking about the possibility of t-storms on Thursday with a cold frontal boundary tracking through. It now appears that front will be mostly south and east of Central VA and the Shen. Valley by Thursday afternoon which greatly reduces the t-storm threat, and certainly the severe threat for Thursday. Having said all of that though, we do need to keep a watchful eye to the sky for later on this evening/tonight. The NWS Storm Prediction Center has highlighted an area to our west under a slight risk for severe storms. A good chunk of this area is also under a Tornado WATCH. There are NO Watches at this time for Central VA & the Shen. Valley. The radar at 2:45pm shows a batch of showers and t-storms moving east across Ohio, Northern Kentucky, western & central West Virginia. Ive put some analysis maps up here showing instability across the region. Youll notice that CAPE values are much higher out across the severe slight risk area, and Lifted Index values are much lower here too indicating the atmosphere is much more unstable in that particular zone. While things are somewhat unstable across Central Virginia and the Shen. Valley, its nothing too impressive. The one thing we have going for us at the moment for any real severe threat would be wind shear (decent strong winds aloft and much stronger than at surface). We see those shear values up to 40 knots. The HRRR computer model which can be a good high-resolution short term forecast model is showing that batch of showers and storms to our west moving across Central VA and the Shen. Valley between 8pm and 11pm. The model does have a tendency to overdue convection (t-storm development) and I do think that may be the case here, but regardless, it does give us a heads up that during that time frame of 8pm to 11pm, we may very well see showers and storms. Because that activity to our west is moving into a less unstable environment across our area, I dont think we are talking a huge severe threat here. However, a few strong storms are not out of the question, with an isolated severe storm or two possible. Damaging wind gusts and large hail would be the primary concerns. Again, I wouldnt get too worried about this right now, but its something to still keep an eye on and I will certainly post any updates here if I see any big changes.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 19:41:05 +0000
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