There’s been some chatter regarding some severe weather potential this coming weekend. Two areas of focus include the southeast/Gulf coast as well as the plains. The southeast area has much better potential for storms than the plains, however some potential exists for a few severe storms in a cold core enviornment that some models are hinting at. Right now, neither looks viable enough to warrent a chase at the time.
As I mentioned, the southeast play holds the best storm potential and SPC’s focus is on that area come Friday and Saturday. However given what I am seeing in the models, it doesn’t have enough spunk for me to bat an eye at this point. Perhaps if it were local for me, I’d entertain the notion, but its hardly worth a fly-and-chase in my eyes right now, and thus is only holding enough space in my memory to peak at it in case this system does generate some potential over the next few days.
Meanwhile closer to home, some model runs are hinting at a cold-core setup with enough moisture sneaking into the area of low pressure to possibly generate some storms. Right now, it looks pretty meager at best and likely won’t result in much, but given the potential track of this storm and its setup within a few hours of here, it bares watching through the week. The 18z GFS is quick to move the low to near the NE/IA border on Saturday which would be well out of play given the lack of potential with this storm. That seemed to be the day of note. Friday, the low is parked over northwest Kansas.
GFS Surface wind forecast for Friday evening.
GFS surface moisture forecast for Friday evening.
The dynamics and shear look best from roughly Oberlin to McCook and points just east to perhaps US-283. Moisture isn’t great at all, mostly in the low 40s, but you can see the axis clearly in the moisture forecast model nosing up into extreme southwest Nebraska. If I were to chase, that would be my area of focus right now. But as I love to say, its still 5 days out, and still not looking terrific enough to set me out this early in the season. But I’ll keep tabs on the setup through the week and if a cold-core setup does indeed try to make itself valid, I’ll give some consideration. Right now, I would call it a no, but I will shift my alert status to slight just to note the eyes are on it just in case.