STATUS: IOP

VORTEX-SE will be conducting its first IOP beginning Saturday, 25 March.  Researchers will be traveling to Huntsville AL and meeting on Friday evening to plan the Saturday activities based on the latest forecast guidance.

We expect a wave to cross the region, increasing the shear substantially on Saturday.  A band of convection is expected to move eastward into the domain out of Mississippi toward evening, but as we found last year, these details are hard to know more than 3-12 hours in advance.  Right now, it appears CAPE will be sufficient for storms, and down in the range we often call “Low CAPE” (around 500 J/kg).  Wind at about 1 km height is expected to be 40-50 kt, which is sufficient for low-level storm rotation.

The NOAA P-3 aircraft will do a mission into LA/AR on Friday, and then will join the surface team observations on Saturday.

I may be too busy to do the blog postings tomorrow and Friday, but will try to blog a time or two on Saturday.

Erik