I love making pizza. It's always different each time. I like to combine different ingredients for a favorable and memorable effect. Yes, it's important for all of the ingredients to come together to produce that 'perfect' pizza.
Hmm, you know, I could be talking weather here. Think about it. I mean the pizza can represent a storm system. Seems like it's always different each time. And it takes a special combination of ingredients to produce a 'perfect' scenario for severe weather. But ALL those ingredients must come together for that desired effect.
Well, there's a lot of ingredients. First, let me share with you a little snippit from Little Rock AR NWS home page. Just a bit ago, they highlighted an ingredient that's very important in severe storm development.
Although damaging wind will be the primary severe weather component, they are expecting a lot of low level wind shear as depicted by this 0-1km Helicity Potential map. Values over 300 represent a significant risk for tornadoes. Therefore, while instability is typically lower at night, the high levels of expected wind shear will produce a chance for isolated tornadoes.
What does this mean for our region? Obviously, the western part of Kentucky will be closest to the action and stand the best chance for isolated tornadoes. Since this will be occurring at night, this becomes especially dangerous. However, as the night progresses, decreased instability and perhaps lower helicity values should minimize tornadic cells by dawn on Monday. Nevertheless, wind damage will be possible for central parts of the state as an impressive squall line will produce winds in excess of 50mph in places.
Several ingredients will be coming together for this expected widespread severe weather event. As they always say, timing is everything. If this system should SPEED up (which is not likely), an increased tornado threat could be realized as far east as the central part of Kentucky. On the other hand, if the system SLOWS down, severe weather could still be realized in the western part of the state but could be minimized in the central and east.
What are my thoughts? I've always had a problem with severe storms occurring in the morning. Lack of instability is a primary component why I tend to discount severe weather. However, after reviewing this fine explanation from the Little Rock NWS, there will be quite a bit of spin in the atmosphere. In addition, high dewpoints along with the low-level jet (perhaps weakening by then) will still be capable of supporting a squall line. If you don't see the squall by 11am Monday, then I do think severe criteria will become a lesser factor while heavy rain should exascerbate already water-logged soils.
For further info about nighttime tornadoes, see this write-up from the Paducah NWS:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=pah&storyid=64575&source=0
I'll post further thoughts on this tomorrow. Check in with our local weather heroes for their latest input on this potentially widespread event.
MS
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