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6/23/10 FCST: MI/ON/IL/IN

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Mar 30, 2008
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Location
Norman, OK
I've been going over every model run for the past couple days for tomorrow and am pleased with what I see. Warm Front draped across the lower peninsula with 2500-3500J/KG of CAPE in place should lead to decent storm development in the mid afternoon sometime after 2 pm. Hodographs are a bit more curved to the east. I especially like the Flint and thumb area around 5pm. SigTor values of over 6 and sigtor ingredient value of 40 is unheard of in Michigan.

This has all the workings to be one of the better days we've had around these parts in a couple years. We'll see how it plays out. It looks like, for once, my house is ground zero as a target.

Morning MCS may mess things up, but hopefully it gets through early and the skies clear out rapidly.
 
This has all the workings to be one of the better days we've had around these parts in a couple years. We'll see how it plays out. It looks like, for once, my house is ground zero as a target.

Morning MCS may mess things up, but hopefully it gets through early and the skies clear out rapidly.

I seem to remember someone telling me my target would never be my backyard...hmm who was that? :D

But, seriously, yeah this is the best setup in a while for Michigan. I took the day off work so I can play in Mother Nature's sandbox. Yeah, 18Z+27 NAM has 0-1km EHI 3-4 and 0-3km EHI up to 7 or 8. 50 kts of bulk shear, Helicity over 300. Most of which is north of I-96 and east of US-127.

Agree with Ben about the morning convection that plows through, will have to keep an eye on that. Should be able to recover quickly if the clouds break.

The NAM hodograph near Clare at 18Z is insane, perhaps that is a little early, but east of there they look similar later.

So I suppose my target isn't actually my backyard, but a bit further north :)
 
Add Ontario to the tag

Looks like an interesting afternoon/evening setting up for Southern Ontario as well. Once again with all setups in the Great Lakes, the early morning MCS will have to clear so we can rebound but that should not be a problem. I would expect storms to fire along the Lake Huron lake breeze line in the late afternoon. As mentioned before, certainly one of the better setups for the area in a while.
 
We are leaving Montreal tonight headed SW to the ON/MI border by morning, we will probably head into Michigan for mid-afternoon.


Only concern is that nightime MCS that must clear the way early and then we are all set. Definitely one of the best setups synoptically so close to home since I chase...
 
geez some sick parameters seem to be coming together for a decent tornado threat in michigan. To bad i'm coming home for vacation one day late hopefully you michigan guys do well. If i had to target somewhere right now i would say either Ionia or St. Johns as of right now but it really is dependent on the mcs evolution, and boundaries left over. It does seem that even if cloud cover wants to hang on the height falls north of the area are going to draw low level instability northward with a sufficiently unstable airmass to trigger convection really the only thing i could see going wrong with how upscale convection is going is if i merges into an overly large blop of an mcs and precip doesn't end in mid michigan til early or mid afternoon, it may be hard to recover after that but i dont think that'll happen it should congeal and accelerate with most of the models taking it right across wisconsin. I do really like the 127 area in the early going it should give a nice n/s road and does intersect quite a few major e/w roads as of right now i like the area bounded by big rapids to mt. pleasant on to saginaw then south to flint and then west to lansing into grand rapids. Good luck guys Michigan is due for a big tornado i just hope i don't miss it.
 
A very robust MCS has developed and is tracking through WI into Lake Michigan at this time. The cloud shield associated with it is huge with very cold cloud tops. There is also backbuilding going on in Iowa which isn't helpful. Considering the time/movement of it, Michigan will be very hard pressed to recover from it until late. An outflow boundary generated from it should push well South into Indiana. Strong WAA later in the day may push that back Northward so I suspect somewhere close to the Indy Turnpike to I-94 corridor in Michigan might be the prime location for some supercells today. Quicker recovery would shift things a bit further North into the I-96/I-69 corridor. Will be watching closely this morning to see just exactly what the MCS does and where the outflow boundary sets up and how much destabilization can occur. 60 knot 500 mb winds blowing into all that moisture should make things interesting this afternoon! A target much further North is also still remotely possible(Clare/Mt. Pleasant vicinity) as much better low-level helicity would be present suggesting even low levels of instability could get things going.

EDIT: A bubble high forming behind the MCS in WI may translate into Michigan allowing for some clearing sooner rather than later after the MCS departs.
 
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Looks like clearing behind the Michigan MCS is progressing quite nicely... Airmass recovery already beginning in Wisconsin, so overall picture for this afternoon shouldn't change much. If you want a severe storm guarantee, I'd place that bet over Indiana. Michigan has a notably better "big day" potential, it's just a question of utilizing the available ingredients.
 
This isn't worth starting a new thread over as it's all the same general region, but my forecast for obvious reasons involves Illinois for the most part.

Just a copy and paste from my blog:

Not quite as gungho as I was yesterday about the tornado potential in Illinois this afternoon, but that could be my morning MCS goggles. What gives me trouble is the convection training along the target area across northern Illinois into central Iowa. Rather than one single bow echo moving thru the area laying down an OFB and leaving clearing skies in it's wake, we've had a very disorganized training east-west line along Interstate 80. Thus, confidence in the location of the OFB and the extent of destabilization are somewhat in question at this point in the morning.

That said, the risk still exists and I will be paying close attention to any areas of significant destabilization ahead of the low today near the OFB. Extensive WAA should help lift the OFB north slowly thru the afternoon, but ultimately it should end up very near Interstate 80, not overly far from where it sits now. After a couple waves of convection, destabilization should begin to occur in southeast Iowa, and eventually extend into northern Illinois. Initially, convection should begin to develop in southeast Iowa but rapidly explode into northwest Illinois during the early-mid afternoon hours. My current target time for initiation is 2-3 PM CDT from near Quincy, IL to the Quad Cities. While low level shear will again remain fairly unidirectional, early in the afternoon hodographs will have some slight turning, which coupled with potentially significant destabilization and the aid of one or more boundaries could favor early storm mode in the form of supercells. This remains conditional, as line segments or multicell clusters are easily a plausible scenario as well which would favor a damaging wind threat. Should initial storm mode take the form of quasi-discrete supercells, a few tornado reports would be possible, likely very near Interstate 80 in northern Illinois. My target for tornado development is between Interstate 88 and 80 in northwest Illinois from the Quad Cities toward Mendota, IL... or a triangle from Moline, IL to LaSalle, IL to Rochelle, IL. Should the currently forecast extreme instability be realized along with the unseasonably strong wind fields associated with the wave, perhaps we can begin talking about a strong tornado or two with any storm initially interacting with the boundary in this area. Storm speeds will also be faster than you'd normally expect in mid-late June, so this is something to consider.

Eventually, congealment into a linear storm mode seems more than likely across central into northeast Illinois as storms move into northern Indiana. Given unseasonably strong wind fields, isolated embedded tornadoes would remain a legitimate threat through the evening.

I'll be hanging here in DeKalb for the afternoon, waiting to see how things unfold but may eventually drop slightly SW to intercept initial convection.
 
Looks like clearing behind the Michigan MCS is progressing quite nicely... Airmass recovery already beginning in Wisconsin, so overall picture for this afternoon shouldn't change much. If you want a severe storm guarantee, I'd place that bet over Indiana. Michigan has a notably better "big day" potential, it's just a question of utilizing the available ingredients.

Rob,

Any thoughts on the 700 mb dry punch that is creating clearing first in the area West of Mt. Pleasant?

I'm keeping my eye on that area; otherwise I would think areas South/West of Fort Wayne..as convection/debris clouds should continue in the MI/IN border areas for quite some time. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that any action that far South will end up being linear.
 
I think the threat farther west across northern Illinois may be decreasing, at least to my untrained eyes. Doesnt look like the rain will come to a quick end in the near future which is what i'm guessing is the result of the weakly capped environment and relatively cool upper level temps (correct me if I'm wrong). Was contemplating making the drive to the Rockford, IL area today but even without the rain the overall setup is not necessarily favorable for chasing. The low quickly moves E between 18z-0z with the trailing cold front following suit. Strongly veered surface winds ahead of the front along with VWP's on forecast soundings suggest modest directional shear at best which would indicate a rather quick transition to MCS. All this combined with fast upper level winds and thus fast storm motions are what made me sit this one out. To top it off, FWIW, the 4km WRF precip shows nothing over northern IL and breaks out a large line across MO/IL/IN. While there may still be a window for a few tors across northern IL, to me it seems the window keeps getting smaller and smaller.
 
Mike - not just that punch, but TAMDAR soundings from MKE & MSN show a nice (but breakable) low level cap and a GREAT wind structure.
 
I'd like to see that junk in northern IL disappear pretty quickly. I'm also worried about post-MCS subsidence across MI / WI. In fact, the 12z HRRR doesn't develop much of anything over MI after this MCS blows through... at least through 03z.

Of note, the 12z NAM / RUC are slightly deeper with the system, but also flatter. There's lots of mid level energy & shear... and provided we can overcome this morning's MCS and subsidence, it would seem that there's a decent chance for redevelopment. However, my gut feeling is that something just isn't right with this setup...

EDIT: I admit, as of 1515z VIS, the clearing is looking pretty good. The redevelopment of Cu in WI is leading me to believe that subsidence isn't that strong afterall...
 
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Maybe I'm way off pace here, but is anyone else adjusting their target closer to the MI/IN border - maybe even closer to Ohio? It seems like most of the CAPE is hugging the MI/IN border and the surface winds just ever so slightly turn better closer towards Ohio. I'm pretty new to this so correct me if I am out of place.

Edit - I'm referring to later in the day around 22z.
 
I understand their reasoning for pushing it south - but I'm not ready to jump on that bandwagon. Good winds in place, nice little cap down low, clearing overhead and to the west. I dunno.
 
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