A Sign of Spring: Tornadoes

Good morning everyone.  It’s no secret that I’ve been getting increasingly worried about Spring 2012 turning into another destructive severe weather season.  From the looks of it, things are about to get kicked off to an early start. 

 

With temperatures soaring into the 60s this afternoon, and plentiful moisture funneling into the Ohio Valley on strong southerly surface winds, the main ingredients for t-storms will be with us.  A low pressure system in the Plains will move into Illinois and Indiana this afternoon, pushing a cold front into KY by evening.  This will serve as the “spark” to ignite the fire, and thunderstorms should erupt by evening across the Commonwealth.

 

The Storm Prediction Center is the agency that monitors the entire nation for severe weather.  They issue watches for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes when needed, but something else they do is issue daily outlooks for severe weather.  These outlooks highlight the areas in the nation where severe weather is most likely to occur.  I want to show you the tornado threat chart for today.  Notice that there is a 10% zone on the map.  We don’t see this very often.  This zone means that there is a 10% chance of seeing a tornado anywhere within 50 miles of a given point.  10% doesn’t sound like much..  but we’re not talking about the chance of rain here..  we’re talking about the chance of seeing a tornado and 10% is starting to get fairly significant.  Owensboro to Elizabethtown to Lexington and then northward from there to the Ohio River...including Frankfort and Lawrenceburg are all in the bulls-eye for this possible outbreak today.

 

 

If there is one fly in the ointment today, it’s instability.  Instability is a measure of the tendency the air has to rise.  It takes rising air to build tall, strong thunderstorms.  Since it IS still February after all, instability is marginal.  You really have to rely on the sunshine this time of year to build any decent instability.  Currently, it looks like central Kentucky may see thick cloud cover today, and this may limit instability.  So this is not the perfect setup for severe weather..   it’s just a really good one.

 

 

Don’t get caught off guard..  like I always say, if you don’t own a NOAA weather radio go get one.  Houses are more likely to be destroyed by storm than by fire...yet we all have smoke detectors, right?  Go get a weather radio!

 

-Shawn