STATUS: Down

The SPC Reports page shows a number of wind damage reports across the northern 2/3 of Alabama from last night.  A more concentrated band occurred across Tennessee, with a couple of tornado reports embedded in this activity (mainly in southwest Missouri).  I have also received a message that the NWS Huntsville has identified EF1 tornado damage in southern Tennessee.  This event is remarkable because it appears that there was no surface-based CAPE  (a measure of updraft thermal energy) present in that area.  This is interesting because, as VORTEX-SE progresses, we are increasingly wondering about the role of CAPE in general, and about the role of subtle details of the wind profile and temperature structure in the lowest few thousand feet (or less) of the atmosphere.  A major future science thrust of VORTEX-SE, should the program continue, will be to find out what the atmosphere is doing, in these very difficult-to-forecast “low-CAPE” events, that is supporting tornadoes.

We are in one of those bleak forecast periods when storm researchers wonder if there is any hope for data collection.  But the atmosphere has a way of transitioning  to new patterns without giving a lot of advance notice!  Right now, it looks like a week to ten days of the current pattern with a western ridge favoring cool, dry, storm-free weather across our research domain.

I will probably not be able to blog on Saturday 11 March, but hope to start again on Sunday.