Texas Spring 2016

[gboudx]

Steve's update is scary. I hope the cap holds. I almost never want the cap in place but this time it would be just fine.

[Shoshana]

Steve's update is scary. I hope the cap holds. I almost never want the cap in place but this time it would be just fine.

Me too. Just drove through a neighborhood in Dallas near Plano and saw a ton of roofer's signs and roof damage. And they didn't even get what Wylie did.

I don't think it's going to affect Austin though. I can never be certain because we don't get all the info y'all in DFW and Houston get...

[Brent]

Steve's update is scary. I hope the cap holds. I almost never want the cap in place but this time it would be just fine.

Seriously. Roofers are backed up for weeks here in Wylie. They just now have started on our house only because our landlord found someone and the inside ceilings won't get finished til sometime next week. Every house I see nearly has roof damage still. So many cars still have tarps on them. I got my back window fixed for cheap but many haven't yet. No more hail!!

[TheProfessor]

Steve's update is scary. I hope the cap holds. I almost never want the cap in place but this time it would be just fine.

Seriously. Roofers are backed up for weeks here in Wylie. They just now have started on our house only because our landlord found someone and the inside ceilings won't get finished til sometime next week. Every house I see nearly has roof damage still. So many cars still have tarps on them. I got my back window fixed for cheap but many haven't yet. No more hail!!

It's actually almost better to have no CAP at all if you can get some lift early in the day. Early morning convection could allow for the Atmosphere to stabilize. With a CAP in place you have to hope it holds because if it doesn't then the CAP actually helps make the Atmosphere more energized. The GFS has a CAPE of 4000 for the Western half of the Metro and 3000 for the Eastern half, that's more than enough to get very large hail. The latest Nam has even higher CAPE Values for the Eastern Half of the Metro as well.

[TheProfessor]

This was a NAM sounding I found in North Central Kansas. It's the hour 84 NAM so it should be taking with a grain of salt of course.


upload pic

This is the kind of sounding chaser salivate on, Loaded Gun and Curved Hodograph in the first 3 Km. This would be a Send the Doppler On Wheels Sounding if it were 12 hours out. Look at that analog too.

[Brent]

GFS says Tuesday/Wednesday is only the beginning(and it does have convection along I-35 Tuesday Night)... still strong signals for a heavy rain event(at least) next weekend, this run is bullseyed over DFW:

[EF-5bigj]

From Steve McCauley on Facebook:

"Here is the atmospheric setup for next Tuesday (see prior post for Monday). Energy levels in the atmosphere will be approaching 4,500 by late afternoon and would be able to support grapefruit-sized hail along with a significant threat of tornadic supercells.

The cap will continue to be parked over north Texas, but the problem is this: a NEGATIVE TILT upper-level disturbance will be moving across the Texas Panhandle late in the day Tuesday. The NEGATIVE TILT is the strongest orientation an upper-level disturbance can assume. If this turns out to be the case, the cap may have met its match.

If the disturbance gets too close, it could cause the cap over our area to become paper thin, even to the point of breaking. And when the dryline punches in from the west late in the day, it could exploit this weakness in our cap and allow storms to break through leading to explosive severe storm development.

So what needs to happen to avoid this severe weather outbreak on Tuesday is for the cap to get even stronger, and we would want to see that negative tilt disturbance stay as far away as possible.

Unfortunately, this best-case scenario does not show up in the data at this time. But we will be watching...."

Sounds like a powder keg like situation if the cap breaks.

[JDawg512]

Where's Porta???

[EF-5bigj]

http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php ... glossary=1 NWS Wichita has some discussion on the event Tuesday. Strong/violent tornadoes mentioned. Obviously parts of TX are in the danger zone also.

[Brent]

Steve McCauley just posted this:

[EF-5bigj]

Its good forcasters are using such strong wording in anticipation of this event.

[gboudx]

Not liking Steves latest post.

Well, this is something I did not really want to see. The European Model appears to confirm that our upper-level disturbance will come in negative tilt on Tuesday evening. I was hoping the latest data would change that outlook by now.

A negative tilt disturbance will cause the upper-level winds to split over us which sometimes - though NOT always - forces air to rise. Rising air is what would weaken our protective cap. Negative tilts also pull in very cold air aloft while simultaneously pulling in warm air in the lower levels of the atmosphere. This is a very unstable situation.

With the split in the upper-level winds, the disturbance coming in negative tilt, and an upper-level front forming in advance of the dryline - all this would indicate the cap may be overwhelmed and allow severe thunderstorms to fire in western sections of north Texas late in the day Tuesday and then move northeast Tuesday evening and night.

Of course, there is still time for changes to occur. If we could at least get that disturbance to come in positive tilt - the weakest of all orientations - that would keep the winds aloft from splitting apart which would potentially keep the cap in place and shut down this nonsense.

But the Storm Prediction Center has also taken notice of the orientation of this approaching storm system as they write in their discussion:

THE GREATEST THREAT FOR SEVERE WEATHER APPEARS TO BE ON TUESDAY. INGREDIENTS IN PLACE FOR A POTENTIAL SEVERE WEATHER OUTBREAK ACROSS PORTIONS OF THE SOUTHERN/CENTRAL PLAINS
TUESDAY AFTERNOON/EVENING. A STRONG UPPER TROUGH OVER THE WESTERN STATES WILL BECOME NEGATIVELY TILTED ... WILL FAVOR SUPERCELLS CAPABLE OF ALL SEVERE HAZARDS INCLUDING VERY LARGE HAIL.

Here's hoping we are wrong, and it comes in positive tilt !

[EF-5bigj]

The significant tornado parameter is pretty high on Tues at least 6 in OK.

[TeamPlayersBlue]

As of now, the timing of the jet streak is pretty bad as well.

[EF-5bigj]

When is the jet streak coming in timing wise?

[EF-5bigj]

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day3otlk.html Enhanced Risk for Tuesday as of now and parts of TX are the 30% to Sig risk for severe weather. I think it goes moderate to high myself but again it's weather and you never know with weather

[Ntxw]

If the storm moves further south like the Euro then the lift will be stronger to break the cap. Very large hail will be the main threat with isolated tornados. Oklahoma and Kansas will be under the gun for long tracked large tornados.

[Ntxw]

Just a myriad of weather in the southern plains, and plains in general. East coast and southeast abnormal heat, that's where this year's heat waves will likely occur. La Nina's and incoming Nina's loves to plant the southeast ridge. Same reason they get hot, we get rains.

[1900hurricane]

I'm planning to chase Tuesday and honestly, if something like the 00Z ECMWF were to verify, I'll be chasing in Texas. Everything that run looks juiced for north Texas. CAPE runs 3000-4000 J/kg, 0-6 km shear runs 45-50 kt, and wind fields look great. I actually modified a GFS sounding in SHARPpy as best I could to match what the ECMWF wind fields looked like and fix a few GFS boundary layer issues. It's certainly not perfect, but it is scary looking. The ECMWF QPF output also shows multiple streaks across north Texas, which is probably the model trying to resolve supercells that have developed in such an environment (link).

The NCEP models track the parent system a little further north, and while a threat in Texas would still exist, the main action would probably be in Oklahoma and Kansas. With that 00Z ECMWF run (which should also be noted is a little bit of a southern outlier at the moment), north Texas will be in the heart of it.

*EDIT for typo.

[Ntxw]

A question I have regarding home and vehicle damage. A lot of properties are still waiting for repairs as in some cases are really backed up. If these areas per say experience another hail storm with more damage would they then have to pay the deductible again as the new incident would be a whole different claim before the repair is made?

The Euro definitely puts some on the worry train.