Thursday night update

Scattered showers and storms dotted the area on this Thursday afternoon and evening. And this was a typical summer event... High heat and humidity and once the convective temps were reached... storms quickly popped. Shear values were quite weak so widespread severe weather did not occur but with the fat CAPEs on the soundings, scattered strong updrafts formed producing pulse-type severe weather. In other words, the stronger storms produced a brief damaging wind gust and even some small hail as the storm cores were descending and the cells collapsing.
Well, this pattern is locked in so it looks like we'll see another hot and humid day for Friday with more scattered storms developing in the heat of the afternoon / evening hours. Once again, with a low shear / high CAPE enviroment, a few of the storms that form will likely pulse out.










On Saturday, there will be a much better chance for showers and thunderstorms - widespread across the viewing area. A strong H5 short will be dropping southeast towards the Great Lakes and actually close off. A couple of convergent boundaries will move southeast across the Ohio Valley as a result of this strengthening system. At this time it looks like we could see several rounds of showers and storms from the above mentioned system.

It looks to me that one round may move through the region Saturday morning. This first batch of storms will be from the the remnant convective cluster that should develop Friday night across Missouri and Illinois. There should be some weakening of this MCS as it approaches us but a 35 to 40 kt southwesterly LLJ should be enough to sustain the storms and allow them to reach us Saturday morning.









Another batch of storms will be likely later Saturday / Saturday evening. These storms will develop on a cold front moving southeast and be aided by a vort lobe swinging southeast around the closed H5 Great Lakes low.












0 to 6k shear values suggest that a few of these storms could be strong to severe with wind being the main threat.








Much of Sunday looks to be just fine but by late day or evening, another round of scattered showers and storms will be possible as yet another convergent boundary and H5 vort lobe rotate southeast around the H5 Great Lakes low.












I'm going to take a quick day off on Friday to be with the kids so Bob Symon will be in working for me. Stay tuned to NewsChannel 32 for any watches or warning that may be issued... Bob, Matt, and Kim will be here keeping you up to date... Oh yeah, don't forget,,, you too can now track storms right down to your street level - anywhere around the nation - by clicking on our new "Interactive Radar" module on WLKY.com.

Have a nice weekend

Later:
Jay