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Dangerous storms are expected to extend from Texas all the way up to the Upper Midwest this Friday. AccuWeather's Bernie Rayno warns of destructive hail, widespread damaging winds and tornadoes.
Transcript
00:00Destructive hail, widespread damaging winds, flooding is going to be a concern, and we're projecting one to two dozen tornadoes.
00:09We're, of course, talking about Friday afternoon and Friday night.
00:12I want to show you the severe weather threat.
00:14I'm going to break it down here on the feed and show you why we're so concerned and why we
00:18have issued a high risk.
00:23There is the area that we're talking about. What's also significant is how large the moderate risk for severe weather
00:31is.
00:32It goes all the way up from Rhineland, Wisconsin, down to Oklahoma City.
00:36But again, right in here, there's your high risk from about Independence, Kansas, to Dubuque, Iowa, and probably just to
00:46the west of Madison.
00:47All right. Why are we so impressed with the severe weather for Friday?
00:52Well, let's go over the ingredients. The first thing you always look for.
00:56Do you have warmth? Do you have low-level moisture? You can check that off.
01:00Let me show it to you here on the modeling here.
01:03So this is tomorrow afternoon at around 2 o'clock.
01:06Look at the surge of warmth coming all the way up in the Wisconsin.
01:09The 80-degree line gets close to Chicago by tomorrow afternoon.
01:13So it may be mid-April, but as far as the weather is concerned, it's June, mid to late June
01:21on Friday.
01:23Also, dew point temperatures, what's the threshold? About 60.
01:26Take a look at our dew point temperatures. I mean, this is very high.
01:30This green here, right in here, is 65 degrees or greater.
01:36This 60-degree line, isodrositherm, that's a line of constant dew point temperature.
01:43It goes all the way up in the Wisconsin, 60.
01:45And you also notice, look how dry it is.
01:48This is a pretty strong dry line coming in here, where dew points go from the 30s to the 60s
01:55like that.
01:56So that's ingredient number one.
01:58All right, let's talk about the energy.
02:00Let's look at the 500 millibar here.
02:02This is what we're looking at.
02:04Very strong dip in the jet stream here across the Pacific Northwest.
02:10Today, watch that come across the area and then sweep through.
02:14See, right in here, Friday afternoon, Friday night.
02:18So what's going to happen is, you're going to have a lot of wind energy here on the southern tail
02:22of this 500 millibar trough.
02:25And you'll notice all the red, too, showing you the wind energy.
02:28Another way to look at it is look at the low-level jet.
02:32And in particular, how it increases.
02:35Watch this.
02:36Watch this area in here.
02:37You do have some wind all day.
02:39But I want you to zone in on this zone in here, how you go from about 30 knots right
02:46in here.
02:47Watch it increase.
02:48This is from 2 o'clock.
02:51Boom.
02:522 o'clock, 5 o'clock.
02:54And then watch how it goes right in there.
02:55All of a sudden, you're going up at about 40, 50 knots.
03:00So not only do you have a lot of wind, but it's an increase in wind, right?
03:04Like water through a pipe.
03:05If you restrict the pipe, the water comes out faster.
03:08That's what's happening.
03:09So that's going to increase your upward motion as you go through the afternoon.
03:14I mean, that is a lot of increased motion.
03:18Just to show you, just to show you how unstable the atmosphere is,
03:26we look at something it calls CAPE, convective available potential energy.
03:32Now, it sounds very complicated.
03:34But the higher the number, the more unstable the atmosphere is going to be.
03:40I want to show you where we're at here.
03:42This is Friday morning.
03:43Right off the bat, you could see this.
03:45You're starting to get in these areas.
03:47And, you know, you're above 1,000 on this number.
03:51That's good enough for severe weather.
03:53I want to show you, watch how it increases Friday afternoon.
03:56Boom.
03:57I mean, now, this is from the NAM.
03:59I tend to trust that when it comes to convection.
04:02But look at this zone in here where you're in the orange and the red.
04:07Remember, I talked about, you know, 1,000 would be a pretty good number here.
04:12You're in this air territory between 2,500 and about 4,500 at joules per kilogram.
04:21You don't really have to worry about that.
04:22But that just shows you how unstable this atmosphere is.
04:27So you've got the warmth and humidity.
04:30And because you have that dip in the jet stream coming in,
04:33you're going to have a lot of colder air aloft.
04:36That makes for a very, very unstable atmosphere here.
04:41Now, let me show you the surface map, and you can see we'll put it all together here.
04:46I was talking about the dew point temperatures here, but you also have this.
04:51You have a strong cold front.
04:52That's why you're getting that.
04:53So you've got your cold front right in here.
04:56All right.
04:57There it is.
04:58That's in the morning hours, right?
05:00Let's go to about 2 o'clock into the afternoon, and then we'll take it to the evening.
05:06So there's 2 o'clock.
05:08Watch this.
05:08You see what's going on here?
05:10You're not getting – and here we are at 2 o'clock, and you don't see any green here at
05:15all.
05:15You have no precipitation.
05:17Watch how it explodes in about six hours right here.
05:23Watch it right in here.
05:25Look at that.
05:26And here's why.
05:27You've got this strong cold front.
05:30And again, you have the difference in not only temperature but humidity right in here.
05:36And this whole area, this whole area just explodes with rain and thunderstorms between about 2 o'clock and 8
05:46o'clock tomorrow afternoon.
05:48I'll take off the front so you can see it, and I'll go over it again.
05:51Watch how it explodes from nothing to that in about six hours.
05:56So that means you have a tremendous upward motion field.
05:59The other thing to consider in this area is you've got these little areas of low pressure in here.
06:06And typically what they tend to do is they can produce directional shear, and you've got to worry about tornadoes
06:12with this.
06:13And that's why we're talking about one to two dozen tornadoes, not only in here but across Iowa.
06:24So when I go back to our map here, and this is what we'll end with, this is why we
06:30have the high risk.
06:31You're going to see golf ball size, baseball size hail, widespread damaging winds, and we think one to two tornadoes.
06:39The peak between 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock, it will then diminish overnight.
06:44Watch for the flooding as well.
06:46And that's the feed.
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