Thursday, April 29, 2010

Update on Severe Chances

Since Candice so eloquently explained severe weather parameters to you folks,  I thought I'd give you an update on our CAPE values. The latest run of our North American Model only predicted a CAPE of about 637 J/kg. Usually, that amount of instability falls well short of severe thresholds. Another parameter meteorologists look at is called the Lifted Index. We usually start thinking about severe weather when the lifted index is between -2 and -5. If the number becomes even more negative than that, the instability becomes greater. The same North American Model I mentioned above is predicting a lifted index of about   -1.8 late Friday afternoon. So if you're a severe weather fan, you may be disappointed on Friday evening.

That said, there have been some severe weather reports to our west in Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. For example: 1-2" hail, 60mph winds, and one tornado in Washington, KS. Plus, the Storm Prediction Center still has us in a slight risk for severe weather late tomorrow afternoon and evening. So the FirstWarn weather team will continue to follow the storms that do develop, and cut-in if the storms do indeed reach severe levels.  --TS

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