Weak disturbance moving through the forecast area currently resulting in little more than cloud cover at this time. Behind that shortwave, skies are relatively cloudless across the western boundary waters in northwest Minnesota. This clearing has allowed temperatures to quickly jump into at least the upper 70s, lower 80s in some locations. A corridor of higher dewpoints were noted along eastern North Dakota with values commonly in the low 60s. The result is that SB CAPE values are >1500 J/KG, but a weak mid-level cap exists. Hi-res near term models indicate that this corridor of higher dewpoints will remain ahead of the front and push eastward into the CWA by 23Z. This will help fuel whatever convection does develop. To balance the moderate CAPE values, 50kts of deep 0-6km shear were noted. Freezing levels are about 12kft, so hail does seem plausible with stronger cells, but the inverted v shape to the soundings indicate that this may be more of a wind threat. SPC has a slight risk issued for the area including a 2% tornado area.

Agitated cu field beginning to develop along and ahead of the cold front nearing the Canadian/ND/MN border. While we don’t have access to the 1min super rapid scan, we have noted some expansion of the cu field over the last 45mins. The Convective Initiation Product returning a modest 10-27%, but even those numbers have started to increase over the last few scans. Looking at the total PW values sampled by the GOES-R LAP algorithm, values do seem consistent with the numbers from the SPC Mesoanalysis Webpage. However, the 18Z Total PW has shown a few bullseyes of values >1.4″ coincident with the aforementioned cu field.

Shasta/Wacha