Sunday, July 11, 2010

Monday: to go or not to go

There is a chance of some really good storms tomorrow near the Battlefords. Justin posted about this before, and here are my thoughts.

Moisture - progged to have dews in the upper teens at the surface.
Instability - MLCAPEs around 2000 J/kg.
Lift - warm front in the area draped across the South Saskatchewan River valley.
Shear - Good turning with height especially near the warm front, but more robust 500 mb flow is forecast to the south, down by Leader and area.

I'm a little bit skeptical of the moisture, seeing as how dews are currently in the 10 degree range--and that's at the moist stations.
Shear is only okay because the juxtaposition of the jets isn't great, but with looping hodographs a few supercells aren't out of the question.

I keep vacillating on whether or not to go, because it's a long drive for a one-day wonder. The moisture is the part that concerns me the most, so I'll be watching the dewpoints throughout today and tonight, and if they come up enough (and stay up) I could be making the long trek tomorrow.

If it all comes together, supercells will be likely along the warm front. Because of the more looping hodographs and less upper support, wet HP-ish rather than classic supercells will be the order of the day. Then again, maybe that would work in my favour because of raining near the updraft and providing the moisture in situ that's not there at all now.

If the moisture is indeed there, tornadoes are likely. If not, then because of the dry subcloud layer, wind will be the order of the day.

No comments:

Post a Comment