5/24/06 NOW: IA / IL / MO / KS / WI

[Matthew Havin]

Tornado Watch #385 has been issued valid until 8 PM for central and NE MO, and W central IL.

Region of 2000-3000 SBCAPE has set up ahead of the cold front across MO and W central IL.
Cells are beginning to develop across N MO, and will intensify as marginal shear improves when deep layer shear increases with arrival of mid level jet in the area during the afternoon/early evening.

 

[Jacque Tiegs]

we are starting to get thunder here is Kenosha

 

[MatthewCarman]

First SVR warned storm of the event dropping hail to penny size in east central missouri. Expect storms to intensify. Noaa says any storms that pop up and become SVR could produce winds 60-80 mph, golfball size hail, and tornadoes. Looks like we could see a Tornado outbreak today what do you all think? SPC has 10% chance of a tornado. Good Luck to all who chase.

 

[Fritz Kruse]

Shear, instability, and LCL Heights all look good for tornado potential across Wisconsin.

With 2000 J/kg and good shear on Blue River, Wisconsin profiler, and dewpoints holding
and not mixing out like yesterday, there could be some tornados.
http://weather.cod.edu/mcprofiler/BLRW3.6min.gif

 

[samuel stone]

been interesting watching that tornado warned storm in wisconsin slowy develop a better and better velocity couplet over the last hour or so. Thought it was kind of interesting that they had Blue box up there instead of a red box, everything I have seen on meso analysis indicates a pretty good tornado potential up there.

 

[nickgrillo]

Sitting east of Joplin, MO off I-44... Pervasive afternoon insolation has contributed to a strongly unstable boundary layer (yet slightly capped still). A storm off to the east of KSPI continues to intensify -- with deepening cumulous just off to my east suggesting that low-level parcels are trying to reach their LFCs. The 18z ob sounding from KSGF showed deep-layer unidirectional flow -- with some modest veering in the lower levels -- with ~165m2/s2 of 0-1km SRH and ~35kts of 0-6km deep-layer shear (with RUC mesoanalysis underanalyzing 0-6km shear by 5-10kts) and more than 2500j/kg sbCAPE. Latest RUC mesoanalysis shows widespread >2500-3000j/kg of sbCAPE across southern MO -- with rapidly weakening CINH (which has prevented deep convection across much of the region thus far) -- with continued low-level heating likely eroding CINH completely through the next couple of hours. RUC mesoanalysis shows much nicer LCLs than yesterday as well -- e.g. 1200m AGL -- across much of southern MO. I think we have a nice chance at isolated convection this evening!

According to the 18z SGF sounding alone, the environment is modestly supportive of both supercells and bow echoes.

 

[Fritz Kruse]

Watching the MKX radar from home and talking to the parents in Baraboo
while the Tornado Warning was going for Sauk County. My mom was in
the basement for about 15 minutes until I told her the circulation looked
to be just south and the VILs went way down. She did get about an
inch of rain and no hail.

A nice tight circulation cut across central Sauk to just south of Baraboo
with an apparent tornado reported near Praire Du Sac at 601 pm. It
looked like a nice hook for a bit in eastern Richland then looked mainly
rain wrapped from there as the storms kind of merged into a line. But
those rain wrapped circulations are very dangerous as we all know.

 

[Ben Leitschuh]

Randomly I happened to come across the Sauk county storm on my way to Minneapolis from Chicago. Observed a wallcloud with a possible funnel. Not exactly sure where though, I was on 39/90 near the Dells. Obvious rotation with this storm, will post some pics at a later date, here at a motel outside of Minneapolis.