Quiet August; SD chance today and tomorrow

I can't speak for Justin, but I'm in Saskatoon for most of this month and it seems that the severe weather taps got turned off as soon as I got into town.

If I were able to go, though, I would camp out in South Dakota for the next couple of days. Here's today.

Moisture: the morning analysis has surface dewpoints in the upper teens. They should get to 20 no problem this afternoon.



Instability: lapse rates are great across the area 700-500 delta T of 25 degrees at Rapid City), so instability should be easy to realize. In fact, there have already been thunderstorms this morning in southeast North Dakota.

Lift: there's a warm front draped across the ND/SD border that will likely get shunted southward a bit this morning because of outflow from the morning convection. But the convergence along the front should provide plenty of lift.

Shear: the deep shear will be plentiful, as the 500 mb flow is around 40 knots, and with the warm front in place the directional shear looks to be pretty good.



An added bonus is that there's ACC this morning over northwestern South Dakota, a sign that midlevel instability release is occurring.



So as a start I would set today's initial target as Huron, SD.

Tomorrow looks pretty good, too. Great, actually, if the cap breaks.

Moisture will be easy to find, with dewpoints progged to be in the low to mid 20s. Instability should therefore reach MLCAPEs of 4000 J/kg. Lift - a warm front in place. What do you think? And shear will be fine, with a midlevel jet streak progged to come across with winds from 40 to 60 knots. Capping will be an issue, but if a storm goes it will a) likely be along the warm front, and b) likely go explosively. My target: Yankton, SD.