00:00It's time for the forecast feed. We're taking a look at the gradual southward suppression of strong thunderstorms.
00:08There will still be some severe weather out there. We're still tracking some severe storms in the short term here,
00:12moving through the next several hours into this Wednesday night.
00:16In fact, I can bring up a look at the ongoing watches.
00:20We do have severe thunderstorm watches and a hail threat that is most significant in parts of the south.
00:26So here's the ongoing severe risk areas. We have southern Mississippi, southwest Alabama under a severe thunderstorm watch until 7
00:34p.m. Central.
00:35And then from Waco, Texas to Shreveport, Monroe, Louisiana, far southern Arkansas, severe thunderstorm watch until 9 p.m. Central
00:42time.
00:43And here you can see we've been dealing with some hail. Large hail has been the main concern in some
00:48of these areas.
00:50And we've seen a lot of reports of golf ball size hail and potential for more.
00:54More isolated tornado threats have been coming and going at times as well.
00:58By the way, we've had, again, over 10 tornadoes confirmed from a few of the recent events.
01:03Upwards of 13, 14 confirmed so far from Sunday night, or from a Monday night, I should say.
01:09We've had some nasty storms in recent days that have been scattered.
01:12Most days have produced between 7 and 20 tornadoes over the past several days here.
01:17And we're going to see that number come down, fewer than that most likely with tonight's setup, but a lot
01:23of hail out there still.
01:24And that is a big concern.
01:26So if we were to categorize the risks from east Texas in through southern Mississippi this evening into the night,
01:33large hail is the biggest issue.
01:34And I debated low to medium, kind of a low to medium risk of damaging wind.
01:38We're seeing a handful of reports of damaging wind.
01:41But large hail is probably the main issue that we are facing.
01:44Now, big picture, look at what's going on.
01:47This is the dew point map.
01:48And we also do have, I want to mention in the short term, some risk of severe storms.
01:52We even had an isolated tornado warning up in Indiana County of Pennsylvania for about 5,000 people earlier this
01:58afternoon, this Wednesday afternoon.
01:59But the dew points are going to be in decline.
02:03You can clearly see the result of a southward cold front that's going to be kind of erasing the warmth
02:12and humidity here for a day or two.
02:13I'm going to draw that a little more smoothly here as we get into Thursday.
02:16So that's going to erase and eradicate any of the severe threat north of that front here as we get
02:23into the rest of the week.
02:24A break for the Midwest, a break for the Mid-Atlantic as well.
02:28And this is going to squash the severe risk farther south.
02:31So no two bones about it here.
02:33Again, the severe risk is going to be restricted far to the south.
02:37And really, this is good in multiple ways here.
02:41We need some drought relief south of this front.
02:43South Georgia and even up in the areas like Charlotte and Charleston in South Carolina, North Carolina, we need some
02:50more rain.
02:50But the bulk of the rain is going to be focused a little south of there.
02:55And we're going to see these little ripples of energy rotate through this storm track.
03:00The front's going to basically serve as the storm track over the next few days.
03:03So we're going to see some storms at times.
03:05And some of these will be severe even on the Saturday into the southeast here into parts of Florida.
03:11But not much of the southeast, really just Florida.
03:12So we're hunting for, when we look at this product here, this is the vorticity map, 500 millibars, about 20
03:21,000 feet up into the atmosphere.
03:22These blips of bright colors, these are areas where you have spin in the atmosphere.
03:26And if we co-locate that with the dew points being high, our eye is drawn down to this area.
03:31So when are we going to watch these disturbances roll east?
03:33Well, in the short term, one of these areas of disturbed weather is, you can see a few of these
03:40bits of vorticity moving east.
03:43Each of them, east of there, we're seeing some extra lift in the atmosphere.
03:47So, again, a few areas here across the Gulf Coast states where we have an ongoing severe weather risk.
03:52But let's look farther west.
03:53What's happening?
03:54Here comes a stronger shortwave.
03:56Look at this Thursday night to Friday.
03:57This one has a pretty good bit of depth to it.
04:02It's a slightly more high-amplitude shortwave.
04:05It's deep in the southern branch of the jet stream with no connection to the northern branch.
04:10We have a bit of a ridge building over the northwest as this happens here.
04:13We're going to have some very warm weather up into the Pacific Northwest come Sunday.
04:18But this dip in the jet stream is one that has some gumption here through Friday and into Saturday.
04:23So this is going to be the next round of severe weather.
04:25And really, when I look at this pattern, it reminds me of like a late February, early March severe weather
04:31risk area.
04:32This is not an early May pattern.
04:34This is more of a late February, early March severe weather risk when it comes to where the severe storms
04:43will be happening.
04:43So that's what we're focusing on.
04:45And when it comes to instability, convective, this is convective available potential energy, CAPE.
04:52And also SIN, which is convective inhibition.
04:57So we're looking at these competing factors of chunks of the atmosphere in the vertical where you have strong lift,
05:03but also a lid that can suppress that lift with the kind of that checkered or hatched area farther south.
05:12And you'll notice that we have some instability near the Gulf Coast without much of a lid to suppress that
05:17convection.
05:18Here you can see the wind shear with those wind barbs as well.
05:22Most of the stronger shear is frankly out over the ocean.
05:25When you combine that with a stronger shear to the north,
05:28but if we look at areas where there's both instability and wind shear, it's pretty limited near the Gulf Coast.
05:34Stronger instability south, stronger wind shear at times to the north where there's not going to be much lift.
05:39So again, as we kind of put the pieces together and just formulate our forecast,
05:45looking at these different variables, Thursday, it's a sum risk.
05:48We recently added this sum risk into west and west central Texas, the hill country, some hail and damaging wind.
05:54But I'm a little more concerned about south Texas in through the I-10 corridor for Friday.
05:59That's when this stronger shortwave, that bigger dip in the jet stream in the southern branch rolls east,
06:05and that's when we become more concerned.
06:07Meanwhile, on Saturday, it's going to be real warm in parts of Florida.
06:12Look at this, near record highs.
06:13Not quite to record highs, but close.
06:15Maybe we'll tie the record in Vero Beach for the date matching what Saturday,
06:20there would be May 2nd of 2002.
06:23Others, Key West, not quite as warm as we had been on the same date back in the late 1800s.
06:27But with the warmth in place and that disturbance running east along the Gulf Coast,
06:33we've got some concerns about Saturday afternoon and evening with some gusty winds in north Florida.
06:37It's drought relief, though.
06:38And speaking of drought relief, here's the big picture.
06:41One to two inches of rain for most north of that area,
06:44two to four inches in parts of Louisiana and Texas.
06:46And that is your forecast feed.
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