Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Severe Weather Likely Today

FOLLOW ON FACEBOOK: TODD YAKOUBIAN
TWITTER: KATV_WEATHER

While I don't expect an "outbreak" I do think we'll see several severe thunderstorms warnings later this afternoon and evening.  The main threat will be wind and some hail.  There will also be the threat for tornadoes, but I still don't think it's all that high, but you should stay weather aware today.  

I think there's a very high chance the Storm Prediction Center will issue a tornado watch this afternoon for portions of central and eastern Arkansas.  I don't want to completely downplay the tornado aspect of this, but high winds and hail will be much more common within the severe thunderstorms.

As I said in the previous post, this will be a fast moving front and the window for severe weather will be quite narrow.  These storms will develop and merge into a squall line and sweep east of the Mississippi River in just the matter of a few short hours. 

The hires NAM shows storms initiating in central Arkansas between 5-6PM.  I wanted to show you another hi res model below for comparison and some graphics from the Storm Prediction Center.  Remember, these models are NOT perfect, but I like to show them to give you a general idea as to what will happen.

By 7PM, this model shows individual cells developing from south central into northern Arkansas.
The HiRes NAM has more of  solid line by 7PM in almost the exact same location.
By 8 PM, this hires model still has individual cells pushing into eastern Arkansas.  If there's enough low level shear, the tornado threat will be a concern IF this were to verify.
By 9PM, the cells are merging and moving into far eastern and southeastern Arkansas
By 10PM, the storms are exiting the state
The SPC has almost all of AR in a slight risk for severe weather this Wed. afternoon and evening.
SPC indicates a 10% chance for a tornado within 25 miles of any given point in the yellow area in eastern AR.
SPC shows an area where there's a 30% chance of severe thunderstorm winds within 25 miles of any given point in the red shaded area.
SPC shows a 15% of severe hail within 25 miles of any given point in the yellow shaded area.

3 comments:

15 y/o ARweatherweirdo said...

Todd

I was looking at the HRW-NMM model and it appears to me that scattered showers and t-storms would start to pop up in western Ark around 3:00 CDT, push into central Ark between 5:00-6:00 CDT and shortly after form a squall line over east central Ark by 7:00 CDT. If this were to pan out, do you think we would have the worst severe weather over central Ark, rather than eastern Ark? Also if this model were to hold out until the next SPC update, do you think that the SPC would bring the 10% tornado risk back over central Ark? Plus what is the likelihood we would hit a moderate rick at the next SPC update?

Thanks

Anonymous said...

Are there ANY signs of relief from our extended heat wave as depicted in our 7 day forecast?! Come on, what happened to that 50 degree weather? We shouldn't have 80's for highs!

Anonymous said...

"BIG chill", huh Todd? MUSIC TO MY EARS! I love reading this kind of good news on the twitter feed!

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