4/23/06 FCST: CO

[Mark Farnik]

Looks like Sunday afternoon and evening may bring Colorado's first severe weather of 2006. B) A strong cold front is projected to backdoor from the north/northeast during the late afternoon/evening hours. Ahead of the front strong south/southeasterly low level flow will pump Gulf moisture into the northeastern plains of Colorado with TD's forecast to be in the low 50's. Combine that with forecast 70 + degree surface temperatures and 2,000 + j/kg of instability and you have a recipe for severe weather in the High Plains. It's nice to see the close spread of the temperatures and dewpoints this early in the year. Doesn't look to be real big, but I am on my deathbed from SDS and at this point I'll take anything I can get. I'm lusting for some nice storm structure and some great lightning. I'm anxious to try out the lightning capabilities of my Nikon D70S.
Of course we're still 72 hours out from the event, so a lot of things can change between now and then, but come Sunday morning if the forecast still looks this good I'm going to be heading out to Sterling about 3 p.m. and wait for initiation since the best dynamics and dewpoints will be over the far northeastern corner (Logan/Sedgwick/Phillips counties) and then go from there.
Any thoughts/observations?

 

[Stan Rose]

Well...the NAM is still showing dews in the 50s...but if you believe the NAMs dews i have some beach-front property in SE CO id like to sell you. Ill be surprised by anything close to severe.

 

[Mark Farnik]

Yeah, it's now looking like the dews are actually going to be more in the 40's. If the front delays its arrival till late afternoon might see a severe storm or two but the timing of arrival will have to be between 3 and 5 p.m. if it's going to kick anything other than garden variety t-storms up. Frankly at this point I don't care if the storms are severe or not, just as long as they have rain and plenty of lightning with them. Like I said earlier, I'm very anxious to try out my Nikon D70S's lightning capabilities. And plus I'm sick of snow and wind. I'm ready for some thunderstorms!