00:00On this Good Friday, as we move into Easter weekend, and it is Passover weekend as well,
00:05we have a lot to talk about. A very loaded and volatile weather pattern.
00:09The severe threats present this Friday evening, and into Saturday as well.
00:14It's going to come down a little bit in intensity.
00:17Still have some concerns about Ohio on Saturday.
00:19And then a drenching round of rain will move through the I-95 on Easter Sunday
00:24for much of the day. Not the whole day, but for several hours.
00:27So let's take a look at the big picture headline here.
00:30As we look at one big thing for the weekend,
00:33thunderstorms slide from the Mississippi Valley to the East Coast.
00:37This is going to be the biggest headline here.
00:39And then we kind of, after a week with daily severe thunderstorms,
00:43we've had severe weather Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
00:46and we're going to attack Saturday on there as well.
00:48Things will get quieter for a time, with a big trough of cooler air rolling into the Northeast,
00:53coming up early next week, from Monday, Tuesday, and into Wednesday.
00:57Then a warming trend will return.
00:58In the short term, though, here we have our current severe weather threat.
01:03We've been tracking this.
01:04And, again, this is something that we've been talking about all week long,
01:08how there'd be a strong front rolling east here this Friday.
01:12A warm front lifting back north toward Chicago.
01:14And the most significant risk for tornadoes in the short term, generally in this area here around this triple point,
01:25where the warm front and the cold front kind of intersect here.
01:28But damaging straight-line winds will also be an issue with perhaps an isolated tornado threat farther south.
01:33But let's take a look ahead to the next couple days.
01:37And I'm going to look at the modeling here in a moment, but I wanted to at least set the
01:41table for Saturday.
01:42Saturday, this is how we're playing it.
01:44We're going to show you the reasoning for this forecast in just a moment.
01:46But the cold front moves east with time.
01:49And then late in the day, it's going to be plowing farther east.
01:51And you can see that we did introduce a moderate-risk area from Dayton to Columbus to Akron and Cleveland.
01:58Cleveland, you've had quite the week there with those Tuesday storms.
02:01Could be some nasty storms up this way.
02:02If there are any isolated tornadoes, the most likely area for that will be up to the north.
02:06But we're not going with a huge gangbusters area of widespread severe weather
02:10because the upper-level support, as I will soon show you, is actually lifting sharply up into Canada.
02:16So some of those winds aloft won't be as intense.
02:19With all that said, before we get into the modeling, look at this Saturday.
02:24We have some record highs coming into view in Huntington, West Virginia.
02:28Should be our record warmest April 4th.
02:31Record high is 85 from 1986.
02:33Well, 40 years later, we're going to likely break the record.
02:3686.
02:37Reading, PA, probably tying the record from 105 years ago, April 4th of 1921.
02:42We hit 81.
02:43We're going to do it again in 2026.
02:45Philadelphia should break the record.
02:46It's an old, crusty record from 1892.
02:4880 degrees on a hot April 4th.
02:51We're going to be up around 83 tomorrow.
02:53Wilmington, Delaware should break the record from 76 years ago by a degree.
02:57And Youngstown, Ohio should break the record from 45 years ago by 3 degrees.
03:02Pretty impressive stuff.
03:03Well, let's take a look at what's going on out there.
03:05We do have, again, they're back-to-back storms.
03:09Last night's troublemaker is moving.
03:12That's this dip in the jet stream.
03:14And here's the new one, digging into the planes.
03:16So as they roll east, one pulls away, another one digs in.
03:20Let's take a look at how this plays out here moving forward.
03:23And as we loop this, you can see the first one lifts sharply away.
03:27But if this trough, the bright colors there, vorticity, it's a measure of spin in the atmosphere.
03:35Basically, one of the most significant drivers in lift in the atmosphere, clouds and precipitation production.
03:41If you take a map like this and give it to a meteorologist, they can usually sketch up the rainfall
03:46forecast pretty well based just on this single product.
03:50It's the biggest, if you can look at only one weather map, it may be this one as a weather
03:54forecaster.
03:56But if this were to dig down to Indiana, if the core of this low-pressure system where you have
04:02the closed, I could just plot the low.
04:05If this were to dig down, we'd be dealing with a significant severe weather outbreak, kind of like April, kind
04:11of like Easter Sunday of 2020.
04:15That was a memorably bad Easter Sunday with severe weather in the southeast.
04:19But take a look at what happens instead.
04:21Instead of this digging down, it's going to lift.
04:24It pulls east-northeast up into Michigan.
04:26Instead of getting down into Indiana, the core of this upper-level low, by Sunday morning, it pulls sharply north
04:33into Quebec and northern Quebec at that.
04:35So because of that, there is still a potent front tide to this.
04:39It is the caboose. It's the final storm in the series.
04:41It's going to bring a significant change in the air mass.
04:43Look at all that cool northwest flow aloft that follows this.
04:47This is going to bring lasting change, a cool flow.
04:51I'll draw it in blue. Well, I don't have blue.
04:53I'll draw it in red just so you can see it.
04:54It's a cooler flow.
04:56But because it's lifting north, we're not going to see a whole lot of significant severe weather come Monday.
05:01So here's what we're looking at.
05:02We're looking at a widespread zone on Saturday with thunderstorms, and there will still be significant snow.
05:09This is a nasty snowstorm, 6 to 12 inches up in the northern plains.
05:12But as the front pulls east, the upper-level forcing behind this lifts north into Canada.
05:17So the storm begins to lose a little bit of its punch.
05:21Widespread rain Sunday.
05:23Here we are, Easter Sunday morning between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.
05:26Drenching rain for I-95.
05:27That will bring some travel trouble.
05:29Outdoor services, at least in most of the northeast, and especially the interior northeast.
05:35Sunrise services in the interior northeast are probably going to be inside.
05:39I-95, you may sneak it in outside.
05:41It's going to be warm as well, pleasantly warm until the front arrives.
05:44But by midday, this rolls in through I-95.
05:48And again, at sunrise service in Philly, you may be okay.
05:5110, 11 a.m., prepare for rain to roll in, though.
05:54And then it gets colder, and you can see that little signature with some snow showers out there.
05:58Now, when it comes to instability, you can see a signal here where we're looking at maybe near 1,000
06:04joules per kilogram near Cincinnati.
06:06And a little greater than that in Ohio with the NAM tomorrow, the European more timid.
06:11Limited amounts of instability here for the storms on Saturday, but there will be some.
06:15And a quick look at the rainfall Sunday.
06:18It's going to be very wet at midday for I-95 with this front rolling east, and then it clears
06:23the area.
06:23So, as we kind of put a bow on this here and wrap it up, I want to show you
06:27two graphics beyond what I've shown you already within our graphics system.
06:31Saturday night, there are your storms.
06:34Some may still be severe near Pittsburgh, PA, maybe Parkersburg, West Virginia, and Lexington, Kentucky.
06:40And then on Easter Sunday morning, drenching downpours through the interior I-81 by midday on Easter, moving through I
06:48-95, and then moving offshore.
06:50It's going to get cooler behind that for a few days before a warm-up later next week.
06:53That's your forecast feed.
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