Severe storms possible in Virginia on Friday; storm chasers prepare for more storms in southern Plains
Reminder: Deadline for the summer prediction contest is tonight at midnight. If you want to enter, send your projected highest temperature for Roanoke and when it will occur between June 1 and August 31 to weather@roanoke.com by midnight.
There will be a significant risk of severe thunderstorms throughout Virginia (except for the far southwest tip) on Friday as a cold front and jet stream trough plow into warm and humid conditions. The primary threat will be large hail and damaging winds with the likelihood of one or more storm lines developing. The potential for supercells (storms with rotating updrafts) and perhaps a few tornadoes will be greater east of the Blue Ridge, especially near the Delmarva Peninsula where a warm front may provide a somewhat greater level of atmospheric shear (winds changing speed and/or direction with height).
The system affecting Virginia on Friday is the same one the Virginia Tech storm chasers have been tagging for a couple of days in the southern Plains. After a very busy chase day on Tuesday, Wednesday did not come off as expected. We targeted the Oklahoma-Kansas border region where there appeared to be a somewhat heightened risk of tornadic supercells, but the atmosphere had other plans. By late afternoon, severe storms had fired in hard-to-chase clusters in central Kansas, while a few tornadic supercells had developed in the southeastern part of the Texas Panhandle. We did get near a severe storm in the Oklahoma Panhandle right at sunset — a picturesque way to end the day, with glowing red sunlit mammatus clouds. We landed in Guymon, Okla., for the night — and possibly the next couple of nights as well, with a chance for scattered supercells in this general region of the High Plains (elevations above sea level here similar to western Virginia ridgetops) through the weekend, aided by Gulf of Mexico moisture banking against the even higher terrain to our west in New Mexico and Colorado. Today, we plan a sightseeing day, with a picnic at Palo Duro Canyon south of Amarillo, then a return here to Guymon for the evening.
Tuesday’s chase was an amazing success in that the students were able to watch a supercell evolve from initiation — literally when it was just sprinkling rain and had a very high base — into a grapefruit-sized hail chunking monster (we were not actually in that hail, by the way) with recycling rotating wall clouds. As we pulled off that cell both because it was near dark and running into the Oklahoma City metro area, another developed quickly just west of El Reno on Interstate 40. This is the storm we tracked into early evening, spawning a likely tornado near Union City to the south of El Reno. We were evading developing cells well into the evening, running through small hail once on Interstate 44, before landing in Lawton, Okla., for the night. As it turned out, we should have drifted a few counties west of Lawton for the best storms Wednesday, rather than heading to northwest Oklahoma. That’s storm chasing — one day positioning excellently in a setup that produced far more than expected, the next day positioning poorly in a setup that underachieved (at least where we were).
May 31, 2012 - 10:23 AM
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So, yall gonna follow them back east? That is the only action I see on the map.
Meanwhile, back here in ROA, today was about 7 degrees above normal. Actual high (according to wunderground) was 87, normal high 80. Actual low 64, normal low 57. The month through yesterday was a +4.3 here, so it will end up at 4.4 or 4.5 probably. Not a record setter, but definitely WAY above normal. Just another warm-weather month that was well above normal. I call the May-Sept. months the warm-weather months, and it seems like at least 80% of the last 30 of them (that would cover the last 6 years at 5 warm-weather months per year) have been at least a little above normal. Another possible research project for me …
Hey, Kevin, if you have time this evening, since you may be having a relaxing day today out there in the Southern Plains, how about analyzing the most likely areas (if you can discern them from OKLA) for strong or severe weather back here tomorrow in SW and Central Virginia? Looks like Channel 7 is saying that the I-77 corridor (especially N of Wytheville and extending into SE West Virginia) and some regions east of the Blue Ridge appeared most likely on their graphics.
Went from a completely cloud free sky at 6:30pm to in the shadows of an approaching line of strong thunderstorms over the ROA Valley now at 7:45.
Nope, wd. We have good chances of supercells in the High Plains rolling out of New Mexico and Colorado into Texas and Oklahoma the next few days. Open terrain supercells are what we are here to observe. Sacrificing 4-5 days of that potential for 1 hard-to-chase day of line segments and clusters with a few embedded supercells in trees and hills is not in the best interest of our mission here.
Doug: East of the Blue Ridge is definitely going to have the better chance of severe weather, including isolated tornadoes, on Friday. The cold front is likely to arrive there during the warmer part of the day and shear will be better there. But there is a substantial wind/hail threat almost everywhere in Virginia on Friday. Midday to midafternoon is likely arrival time for storms — probably a squall line or line segments — in Southwest Virginia.
I have noticed alot more dead baby birds on the ground(10-12 in the last month). Could the unseasonably warm March caused the birds to produce eggs earlier and the coolish April caused them to remain in the nest too long-causing the nests to break under the weights of the birds?
Thanks for replying, Professor Kevin. FYI, Jay Webb of “7″ estimated that the storms will arrive here in the ROA area around 3 PM, although there may be some rain before the brunt of the front arrives (“I’m a poet and I know it.” Old joke). The OKC Thunder arose from the ashes tonight and beat San Antonio in NBA …. maybe as a tribute to you folks??
So, I’m a bit giddy/apprehensive this morning about the weather. The air feels really sticky and I’m watching clouds streaming in rapidly from the south east. But it’s heavy overcast here off of I81 exit 109.
I don’t know what the cloud cover looks like but, the water vapor imagery looks like all of Virginia has cloud cover this AM.
Morning all!
SPC just posted a tornado outlook map for the Mid-Atlantic:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day1probotlk_1300_torn.gif
East of the Blue Ridge will have the greatest threat.
If Friday’s 0Z NAM holds, it could be quite serious:
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/WRF_0z/wrf24.html
Here’s the Stormtopia.com Friday morning video update…Good work by young Mr. Sayor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YAHQaU3F2Fk
For us Pilots (and passengers)that will be flying in the Mid-Atlantic this afternoon, this is what I’m looking at:
http://www.aviationweather.gov/popups/ccfp/final/image/20120601_1300_F06_final_ccfp.gif
Rots o ruck! Off to defy gravity and back home from Halifax, NS via Jacksonville, FL first.