EWP Blog

While backing up Pleasant Hills, MO, we had a report of a tornado around 2045z near Tarkio. This is far from all local radars, so the weak rotation the radar was picking up was aloft (about 13kft).

Out of curiosity, we wanted to see if there was a lightning jump around the same time, and sure enough there was (from 28-100 flashes/min).

-BT & Wacha

We seem to be sporadically losing the ENI data that generates the Lightning Jump algorithm. A storm quickly developing northeast of the Denver International Airport showed a strong jump in the lightning density from the PGLM. Meanwhile there wasn’t even a footprint for the Lightning Jump algorithm. When more raw data filtered in, the Lightning Jump information re-appeared.

-Shasta and Mr. Snow

Time series showed another jump with this previously warned cell.  DVIL maintained, had a lightning jump, with some areal coverage increase as well.  Tornado signal not as much as before, but including that cell in the area of this SVR.

Cell moving into Page county, fairly distant from radar, had a strong rotation at the base, around 6 kft AGL.  Given tornadic environment and this signal, which had rotation in the tilts higher up as well, issued a TOR.  Had issued a SVR for the cell just to the south.  See the lightning jump in the cell to the north.

Prob Severe was increasing with a signfcnt lightning jump indicated on the ENI data decided to warn on it before it crossed into MO and out of our CWA.

Cell in the north had a DTA, but DVIL never jumped too high and 50 dbZ heights were not overly high.  ProbSevere, as in the loop above also never jumped too high.  Thus we did not issue a warning here.

NUCAPS first guess was not that representative of the atmosphere when sampling a clear air sounding. After altering, we went from 0 to 3500 J/kg of CAPE. Which we thought was a bit high.

We did the same thing for an area farther north where we are expecting more instability. First NUCAPS sounding before altering did show a little CAPE (a few hundred), and altering took it back to ~3000 J/kg, a few J/kg lower than the southern, more stable environment. -BT

Found a clear area just near the point of the KS/MO/NE line. Looked at the NUCAPS sounding and manipulated the boundary layer points some…did have a dry layer near 925mb..left most of that in…came up with a CAPE slightly higher than was showing on the SPC mesoscale analysis…3209 where the analysis was showing between 2500-3000.

Cell with warning on it now longing looks like it has a strong updraft in loop.  Do have some sign of cells breaking through, even in our cooler northeast

Instability is increasing again this afternoon in the wake of the departing complex of showers and storms from earlier this morning, which is raising the likelihood that we will see convection redevelop along and ahead of an approaching surface cold front. MLCAPE values are expected to climb into the 1000 to 2500 J/kg range this afternoon, highest near the NE/KS border. Given deep layer shear values are in the 30 to 40 kt range with a strong low level jet, expect we will see some scattered storms develop in the mid to late afternoon hours, especially across northern/northeastern portions of northeast KS.  Given the strong mean southwesterly flow, any strong storms that develop ahead of the approaching cold front should quickly move northeastward and out of the area. The best tornado threat should remain just to the north of the area closer to the stalled boundary to the north of the region in southern NE. Expect our main threat will be from damaging wind and large hail, as there appears to be good -10 to -30 degree C CAPE and more associated with a developing line of storms late this afternoon into the evening (which could extend southwest to northeast across the area) as the front shifts eastward across the area.