7/20/05 TALK: MN/IA/WI

[Jayson Prentice]

Looking at some potential for tomorrow, only problem will of course be the cap. I will be available for chasing and beings it looks to be a pretty local event it won't be much for me to head out just in case. Instability and lift are very nice in northwest Iowa, shear isn't to bad. Capable of some supercells in the area... Anybody else thinking of taking the risk?

 

[Anthony Silver]

Yeah, I was thinking about trotting up to northern Iowa today...but I'm now not very impressed with the set up. The cap looks to be in place across that area throughout much of the day...and if storms do develop...it probably wont happen until this evening sometime, meaning the storms will take on a more linear mode. LCL's dont look favorable at all for tornadic development. But if initiation occurs, there could be some decent winds and hail.

 

[Edward Ballou]

SPC is favoring supercellular development but it is as Anthony says, the cap is going to be a major factor. Looking at the Skew-T's and models, it seems we might have two zones of possible development. One is Storm Lake to Algona and the other is Worthington to Mankato. I'd say anything in this box is fair game for those in the area. I'll see how things are when the next run of models come out. NWS out of FSD is sortof downplaying the event, saying large hail and damaging winds. No mention of tornados unless damaging winds includes that. If someone really wants to go out, I might be able to sneak out of work a little early today and meet up.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Well, Wisconsin is once again getting screwed over by a weakening morning MCS that was not resolved by models the day before. :x

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

That MCS just may come in handy here in Illinois. Got a high cape/helicity area in NW into northern Illinois this afternoon...and if something can develop on the southern flank of the dying mcs in the very unstable, higher helicity area...it could potentially bring some life to this area.

 

[Scott Lincoln]

I'm curious to see what this morning line of showers will do to the atmosphere. Probably will add more moisture to the atmosphere and keep us from warming up as fast. Not sure how long it will take for the soil moisture to be transported into the air through the crops... but that is always one of those odd factors in Iowa severe storms.

If it wasn't for the high LCLs I would probably be excited about today.
My bufkit forecasted sounding doesn't really show such a strong cap. There is a small area of smaller lapse rates at about 750mb.... but otherwise it looks pretty uncapped. I dont see there being much problem breaking the cap if we get some sun.

 

[J West]

I'm sitting here waiting patiently for the line-o-garbage here in SE WI :roll:

There is a large tire-pile fre burning about 50 miles WNW of MKE, so large the smoke plum is visible on GOES...perhaps some local enhancement :shock:

Looks like a cell is trying to go discrete SW of Chitown, and the line is getting better defined over by the Quad Cities....but it all still looks like crap overall.

 

[Jayson Prentice]

I was thinking about the cap as well and wether or not we would indeed be capped off. Especially since all day yesterday FSD was talking that they weren't expecting any storms becuase 700 temps were so high. Well, storms did fire across much of northern SD later evening and 700 temps in that region were measured at 12-14 degrees. This cold front has shown some amazing lift with it, coupled with new outflow boundaries today that should stretch across northern NE and northern IA I believe we should have no capping problem at all once we get to the evening. Of course, this means that there isn't going to be much time before they go linear. But, I'm right here already so I'm a go for it...

75/69 right now here... Expect us to warm rapidly into near 90 I believe.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

That line in eastern Iowa looks really good on all of the radar sites, including the spc mesoanalysis page, but when you go to the actual DVN radar site, it looks like crap. Really hope that thing fires up with daytime heating, or we get some new discrete stuff forming along its OFB.

 

[Tim Gonyo]

Sitting at work right now, skies darkening to my west... awaiting the "line-o-garbage" to pass through.... its only 11 am, if this thing would pick up some speed and haul out of here so the sun could come back out, the added moisture might help afternoon development in southern WI, but I doubt this will happen... Skies will probably end up clearing around 3 or 4 pm... much too late for anything worthwhile to develop.

Horrible too, because cape wasn't too bad, and helicity was nice in Southern WI today...

-Tim

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Hooray, new watch to be issued for northern and central Illinois, thanks to the reintensifying mcs. Would of course love some tornadic sups...but I guess I'll settle for this at this point. Maybe I can get some high winds or a nice shelf cloud out of it.

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

And a new watch box is out now over Illinois! Pretty sad that its gotten to the point where I'm actually getting excited over this...but, I'll take it.

 

[Craig Maire II]

On this date 2 years ago I scored an F1 tornado in southeastern Linn County near Mt. Vernon, hoping for a repeat today or tonight! Lifted indexes and shear look pretty impressive in western Iowa, with all this shear, strong instability and outflow boundaries I wouldnt be surprised if a tornadic supercell or 2 developed later today, esp. west of I-35......

 

[Edward Ballou]

MD just issued from Omaha to I-35 and north of I-80. Talking about isolated high-based supercells till about Des Moines. Good luck today Craig, I'd head out if I were you...you're in much better position.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

I'm considering leaving for the area around Sioux Falls soon. Or at least getting up to the Vermillion exit. Boundary is showing up well now on satellite up there(just north of Sioux Falls). Hopefully this other boundary will start lifting that way soon as well. Sioux City seems like a good place to be. I'm not real confident about much of anything going west of there. I've not had great luck playing the Sioux City "bermuda" triangle where chasers dissapear between river crossings. I guess there is plenty of time left to watch things as well. Actually maybe I'll just stay with this boundary near Omaha and hope it starts to lift. Not sure I care for the really backed 850 flow north of it on that other boundary(too much turning). Ok yeah, I've just decided to stay with this other boundary.