2017-05-15 EVENT: KS/TX/IA/MN

[Ethan Schisler]

I figured I would start a short thread for this one. I'm limited on time, but things look fairly decent tomorrow along the dry line in West Central Kansas. It kind of reminds me of May 21st last year (the Leoti day). The NAM and GFS both show the first in a series of shortwaves ejecting into the plains for tomorrow. Instability ahead of this feature looks very high with values exceeding 3000 J/KG over a large portion of real estate from Iowa back to the Texas Panhandle.



And by 21-00z a 40-50 knot shortwave ejects into the high plains and allows for storm intiation between this time period.





850mb winds look to back nicely toward sunset as well. A cap bust might be my only concern, however with the progged shortwave, I think storm initation could and will occur. The 3km NAM is showing CIN mostly eroded over a large portion of Kansas by 21-00z anyway. As far as targeting tomorrow. I could see a target in Kansas, perhaps the Texas Panhandle and if the 12km NAM is right maybe another one up in Iowa. I wish I had more time to go into detail on each of these areas, but I don't. So I figured I'd leave this up as a place-maker to get talk going!

 

[JeremyS]

I've been watching tomorrow as well for a few days now. The models have been showing sky high indices(STP and EHI) in Nebraska and Iowa along a retreating warm front, but everywhere I've read has pretty much said no storms tomorrow during the day. The 3km NAM though has been showing storms on every one of it's runs. I picked out a sounding in western Iowa ahead of the storms that are supposed to form around 4p along the Missouri River. Also posted the forecast helicity tracks. Too close not to watch it of course and head out if it continues to look good. I've also read about dews being overforecast, but tonight dews have already increased to the low 60s so it shouldn't be too hard to get to mid 60s at least hopefully. Unfortunately we don't have any crops yet to help that out around here!

 

[Ethan Schisler]

Agree with Jeremy here. My eyes have shifted closer to home for tomorrow across Central Iowa perhaps Northern or Eastern Iowa too. HRRR has been consistent in showing an initial cluster of storms pushing east and perhaps intensifying through the late morning/early afternoon hours and moving into Illinois. Its going to be further west or along this heating boundary that I think will need to keep an eye on. The problem tomorrow will be the timing of any sort of shortwave, if it occurs too late, it will be a cap bust, which is a strong possibility after the initial wave. I couldn't even pick a target city right now, I will wake up and check mesoanalysis and models around 10am.