Friday, May 30, 2008

Saturday: Severe Shifts Into the Northeast


Before my discussion, here is what the numbers on the map mean. The %'s are the chances of severe weather occurring within 25 miles of any given point. That means if you pick a point, that is the probability that severe weather will occur within 25 miles of it. Here is my discussion:
A cold front will continue to push south, now into the Northeast, southern Planes, and the Ohio Valley. Instability will be growing south of it, and moisture will be plentiful. The question is, where will the best instability be and best wind shear will be. I believe that from the Ohio river and points SW along the front, instability will be pretty high with CAPEs of 1500-2500. LIs will also be below -5 in that area. So in the risk zones from the Ohio river points SW, hail and locally damaging winds will be possible with any of the stronger storms. Wind shear will not be that high here so tornadoes are not a big threat. In the Northeast/Mid Atlantic, the set up is a little more complicated with questions to where the extensive cloud cover will be and where the best shear will be. I believe that most of the NE, from central PA/central NJ northward will have mostly cloudy skies most of the day from tonight's leftovers. This will really limit instability. However, south of that area, there will be more sun, dew points will be in the upper 60s, which will allow CAPEs of up to 2000, and LIs of as low as -6. These numbers will allow storms to bubble up in the moderate risk area, and with the wind shear damaging winds and tornadoes, along with large hail are all threats in this area. I believe that the storms will fire along the cold front in mid Afternoon, and become severe fairly quickly. These storms will fire in SE PA, MD, and western VA and move ENE quickly. There could very well be an organized line of storms along the cold front with discrete super cellular storms ahead of it. Farther north, instability will be lower, so the severe threat will be lower. If those areas can get some sun in the afternoon, scattered storms will develop along the front, but moisture will be a little lower, instability will be lower, and shear will be slightly lower, so farther north the severe threat is there but not as high as the mid Atlantic.

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