BLOG: SEVERE WEATHER RISK EARLY THURSDAY
Good morning....A (hopefully) quick update on the severe weather risk across the region late tonight/early Thursday.Overall, the ideas are similar to yesterday but now we can "hone in" a little more on where the highest risks are and the timing.First of all, a quiet day today with the complex of storms well to our southwest missing the region. Just some high clouds mixing with sunshine for us.
Violent supercell thunderstorms will likely develop this evening over parts of the Midwest and start tracking southeast. The storms will likely evolve into more of a "squall line" or, if you really want to get fancy, a "mesoscale convective system". You may hear "derecho" thrown around and that's fine.....call it what you want but the name does not matter. What matters are the impacts.Those impacts will be significant for our neighbors to the west.Simulated model radar taking us through early tomorrow morning:
Here's where the Storm Prediction Center has the risks today and tonight:
A reminder of (generally) what these categories mean.
Notice that Columbiana County is in the "Enhanced" category. I think this is reasonable as the odds of getting hit by the main line of storms increase as you head south and west away from Youngstown. I suspect that you will see SPC "tighten up" the gradient between the categories this afternoon, with areas north and east of Youngstown moved into the "Marginal" instead of "Slight" risk.I say that because I suspect the line of damaging storms will move something like this:
Odds of different types of severe weather (SPC forecast):
The window for severe weather in our viewing area (again, it's most likely south/west of Youngstown) will be roughly 2-5am.Hopefully we just get a good soaking rain, which we need. Models showing around an inch but keep in mind amounts can be locally much higher if soaking downpours persist.
This is one of those situations where things CAN change. Keep checking the forecast. These thoughts seem reasonable to me at 9:30am but as new information becomes available there can be updates to the ideas. Be sure you are following me on social media.