First Severe Weather Event of 2009 Tuesday-Wednesday?

First Severe Storms Event 2009? -

It’s beginning to look like the first real significant severe weather outbreak of 2009 could be setting up. Starting on Tuesday, things could be coming together over the eastern Texas and Oklahoma, the Deep South and Southern Mississippi Valley for severe storms, including tornadoes. A potent low pressure system with strong upper level support will be organizing on Tuesday in the lower Plains where the first round of possible severe storms and tornados could become a reality. This will all organizes more into the overnight hours on Tuesday and into Wednesday. Timing of moisture return and upper-level support are still being find tuned, but it’s beginning to look more likely of a more widespread sever weather event on Tuesday and Wednesday.

GUIDANCE IS STILL SUGGESTIVE THAT DISCRETE STORMS ARE A DISTINCT POSSIBILITY ACROSS PARTS OF NORTHEAST TEXAS AND SOUTHEAST OKLAHOMA INTO WESTERN ARKANSAS BY THE EARLY EVENING HOURS. A LOW-LEVEL CONFLUENCE ZONE/ZONE OF ENHANCED WARM ADVECTION NEAR THE INTENSIFYING /50-70 KT/ 850 JET CORE…BENEATH DIFLUENT UPPER FLOW…COULD PROVIDE THE FORCING FOR THIS ACTIVITY. AND…IF THIS OCCURS…LARGE CLOCKWISE CURVED LOW LEVEL HODOGRAPHS BENEATH STRONG WEST SOUTHWESTERLY MID/UPPER FLOW …AHEAD OF AN APPROACHING 90-100 KT 500 MB JET STREAK…WILL BE QUITE FAVORABLE FOR SUPERCELLS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING TORNADOES. -SPC DAY2

Severe Weather Shifts East On Wednesday -

Wednesday will shift the severe weather further east into the Tennessee Valley and the Southeast states, possibly where there might even be better moisture and heating. Even the Storm Chaser community chatter is up on this system, and it being the first real significant event to forecast and track, there could be a few early season Chasers out there searching in the hills and tree’s for the first catch of 2009.

Tuesday morning will paint a much better picture on how this could setup moisture-wise and coverage of storms. I’ll be monitoring the forecast computer model trends throughout today and into Wednesday, and have more later today and on Tuesday. What ever the case, the Southern United States could see a few stormy days ahead, so keep tabs on the weather the next 72 hours. More to come…

Severe Storms Moving Through Alabama And Deep South

Alabama Severe Weather -

Late afternoon and evening severe storms moved through large portions of the Deep South and Northern Gulf coast states today. This was the first severe weather setup of 2009 for the South, and Alabama seemed to take the brunt of the action. A tornado watch was issued during the afternoon, and several tornado warnings were active throughout the evening hours. In the following nexrad radar picture, you can see a tornado warned thunderstorm cell moving along I-20 in east-central Alabama in Calhoun County. The cell in the image almost looks like a backwards little hook echo, and was showing signs of decent rotation as the cell tracked very fast to the northeast near 70mph. I couldn’t imagine chasing that cell through the Alabama tree’s and hills after dark.

Severe Weather Reports Minimal -

Luckily there have been no confirmed tornado reports outside of a strange water spout report on Weiss Lake, AL. There were also a few funnel cloud reports, but without incident. Most of the severe weather reports with damage were related to straight-line winds likely associate with the squall line and downburst winds in the stronger cells embedded in the line. Now that the daytime heating is gone, storms to begin to weaken as we move into the late evening hours. Tornado watch #3 should expire in the next hour, and Tornado Watch# remains active for several more hours as the line of strong to severe storms moves into the out looked area from the west.

Midwest Snow Storm Showing Snow On Ground From Satellite Loop

Snow and Ice As Seen From Space -

This past weeks Midwest snow and ice storm not only left it’s marks on regional airports and highways, but also from above looking down with high resolution visible satellite imagery. Visible satellite loops can pick out all kinds of interesting features not only with clouds at different layers of the atmosphere, but also featured at ground level. As you can see in the following visible satellite loop, large portions of the central and northern Plains states are covered in heavy snow. This stands out as the “white” not moving while the rest is mid and upper-level clouds streaming across the United States. The snow reflects sunlight and shows up a stationary in the background, while the rest is clouds in motion above the ground. You can clearly see a large swath of snow from the Plains east-northeastward into the Great Lakes and Northeast. Now that the storm system is pulling away and taking all the clouds with it, it opens the view to all the snow and ice on the ground left behind by the storm.

What Else Can We Find In This Satellite Loop?

You can also see the eastern outline edge of the Rockies Mountains running south to north through eastern New Mexico and Colorado. The stationary “white snow” marks the Rocky Mountains at much higher elevations. Visible satellite imagery can be a lot of fun to search and find new features each day. Not only is it helpful in forecasting the weather, finding mesoscale boundaries and convergence, but also pinpointing wildfires, floods, hurricane movement and interesting cloud formations. I use visible imagery each day for personal forecasting and just to kill time trying to pick out new and interesting features in the fluid atmosphere.

Squall Line Of Storms Rocks Deep South, Florida Up Next

Deep South Being Rocked By December Severe Storms and Tornado Watch -

Severe storms raking through the southern central Gulf coast states this evening. Several Tornado Watches are currently active in Louisiana and Mississippi until the overnight hours. A few tornado reports have already be record early this afternoon in Alexandria, LA, which is in Rapids county in central Louisiana. Several other severe weather reports from today include, large hail and strong damaging straight-line winds in eastern Texas and western Louisiana. Currently there is a squall line with embedded rotation storms moving through the deep south region, with more isolated severe storms out ahead of the main line. These storm cells have the potential to produce isolated tornadic events in the few hours before the heating of the day is lost.

Tornado Watch # 946:

DISCUSSION…THE THREAT FOR SUPERCELLS/TORNADOES WILL PERSIST THROUGH THE EVENING WITHIN A VERY MOIST AND MODERATELY UNSTABLE WARM SECTOR ACROSS CENTRAL/SRN LA INTO MS. THE APPROACH OF A PRONOUNCED MID LEVEL TROUGH FROM SW TX WILL CONTRIBUTE TO A FAVORABLE ENVIRONMENT FOR ADDITIONAL THUNDERSTORM DEVELOPMENT INTO EARLY TONIGHT ACROSS SW/SRN LA…WHILE THE ONGOING PRE-FRONTAL BAND OF STORMS FROM CENTRAL LA INTO WRN MS SHOULD ALSO PERSIST. A VERY MOIST BOUNDARY LAYER AND STRONG LOW-LEVEL SHEAR WILL SUPPORT A THREAT FOR OCCASIONAL TORNADOES…ALONG WITH DAMAGING WINDS AND ISOLATED LARGE HAIL.

Florida Up Next For Severe Weather On Thursday -

This same system is forecast to continue into the Southeast as another area of low pressure if forecast to develop over the Gulf water along the boundary. This next low is forecast to come ashore in the western Florida Panhandle and race northeastward, but at the same time, putting much of Florida in the warm sector primed for strong to severe storms and a likely squall line passage for everyone on 12/ 11 /08 -Thursday. I will once again be monitoring for any storm chase opportunities for Thursday afternoon. Forecast computer models are pretty much near agreement of some type of squall line and rain event for Thursday for the Florida peninsula, especially central region where better forcing and upper-level support will be in place.

More on Thursday’s potentially severe weather setup and any chasing ops.

Severe Storms Moving Into Orlando, Okeechobee, Ft Pierce

Tornado Watch In Effect For Central Florida -

The last several hours the thunderstorms have increased over western central Florida and the Lake Okeechobee region. The main squall line is now moving into the greater Tampa Bay offshore waters and will be moving ashore in the next hour or two with isolated damaging winds and heavy rains. Further south and east, there is another convergence zone with a moderate narrow line of showers and embedded thunderstorms. There seems to also be some more discrete cell trying to break off of this line, and these must be monitored closely over the next hours for any signs of rotation. This featured could become the main show into the early afternoon hours, so everyone from Sarasota northeast to Orlando and point east like to Sebring need to closely watch the weather the next few hours.

SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT… FORMAL ACTIVATION MAY BE REQUESTED. THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE REQUESTS SPOTTERS TO FORWARD REPORTS OF SEVERE WEATHER BY TELEPHONE TO 321-255-0212

Strong Storm Heading Toward Ft Peirce, FL -

Here in the last 25 minutes, and strong pulse-like storm moved through Okeechobee County, with winds gusting near 45mph at time and with very heavy rainfall. The cell has since now moved rapidly northeastward into St Lucie County, but winds remain very gusty here and steady. The more beefy end of this storm could impact Ft Pierce, FL in the next 30 minutes, and the storm cell looks to becoming a tad more organized with each radar scan. Actually as I type, the National Weather Service in Melbourne, FL just issued a Special Weather Statement for these cells:

AT 1148 AM EST…NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED HEAVY SHOWERS MOVING RAPIDLY OFF LAKE OKEECHOBEE.. MOVING NORTHEAST AT 50 MPH. ADDITIONAL HEAVY SHOWERS AND EMBEDDED STORMS WILL DEVELOP AND LIKEWISE MOVE RAPIDLY TOWARD THE NORTHEAST. STRONG WINDS JUST ABOVE THE SURFACE WILL BE TRANSPORTED TO THE GROUND IN SOME AREAS… PRODUCING STRONG GUSTS.

Continue to close watch these cells over the next hour. Also further isolated storms are developing now to the west, so it will likely become very active with possible severe storms for the remainder of the afternoon from north to south.

Weatherzine Related Posts:

• Tornado, Severe Storm Threat Increasing, Storm Chase Active Now

Gulf Low Pressure Could Stir Up Severe Storms This Sunday

Monitoring Forecast Models For Possible Severe Storms Sunday -

The latest weather forecast computer models have continued to come into better agreement the last day or so, that a strong surface low pressure system will organize in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico sometime around Sunday. Some of the models develop a 990mb low and then track it northeastward up the Mid-Atlantic coast, and at the same time putting much of Florida in the warm sector of the system with possible strong to severe storms ahead of the trough boundary. It’s still too early to know how much moisture and warm air modification of the atmosphere over Florida will take place over the weekend, but if there is a decent rebound of dew points through the Friday and Saturday, we could be looking at some severe weather possibilities Sunday-Monday timeframe. It will be interesting to watch the next several model runs to see if the trends continue for a late November severe weather setup over central and Southern Florida.

Late Season Florida Storm Chasing Possible -

If severe storms become a threat late in the weekend, I’ll be sure to be out on the road in search of some late season rotating storms. What Storm Chaser can pass up a late season severe weather setup before heading into those nil winter thunderstorm months. Here’s to some nice moisture rebounding this weekend! This could all take place on November 30^th, which also marks the last day of the 2008 Atlantic basin hurricane season. So, while Floridians sigh in relief that the season came to a close with no land falling hurricanes in 2008, there could be some strong severe storms to tend with, but the rain will be very welcomed.

More to come over the extended Thanksgiving holiday weekend on this possible developing storm system. Happy Thanksgiving!

Storm Shelf Cloud Scenes Like This Coming To A Close

Where Did All The Sea Breeze Storm Go?

Being a Storm Chaser, the news I’m about to share with you is killing me. The Florida 2008 thunderstorm season has come to a close, as the dry season kicks in for Fall and Winter. Not only this time of year do we change the clocks to shorter days and longer nights (not a fan of long nights), and watch the sun angle become lower in the sky, we also see our wet thunderstorm season over Florida wane as the once tropical moisture rich atmosphere is replaced with drier northern air that helps to scour out behind each cool front. The clash of sea breeze and lake boundaries that produced strong to severe thunderstorms from May until now are a thing of the past, and will return in the spring of 2009. That seems so far away especially when you live for strong convection to happen everyday, at least wishing for it to. It will be missed, and it will be a long brutal winter for me awaiting the new thunderstorm season to return in the spring.

Pulse Shelf Clouds vs. Squall Line Gust Fronts

Impressive shelf cloud scenes like the one in the above Florida pulse thunderstorm picture from summer, will likely only take place when associated with a cold front and squall line moving into the state during the winter months. The only forcing during the winter months to produce gust fronts like this, happen ahead of the cold fronts pre-frontal boundary, where a squall line of strong storms digs into the state. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until the sea breeze thunderstorm season kicks back in about 6-7 months from now.

Three O’clock Lightning storm magic comes to a close, will you miss it?

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