A weak cold front has slowly been working its way through Michigan today, with storms firing ahead of it in a very soupy warm sector. Ugh! With temperatures the past several days ranging from the upper 80s to 90 degrees and dewpoints as high as 73 here in Caledonia, it’s about time things cooled off and dried out a bit.

Unfortunately–or fortunately, depending on your point of view–all that lovely moisture has been wasted on insipid lapse rates and humdrum wind fields. What can you do with 500 mb winds of 25 knots or less? Answer: not much.

So what’s with that red dot in Wisconsin in yesterday’s storm reports? Not only did a tornado occur near the town of Cambria, but from the looks of the YouTube videos I saw, it was fairly impressive. Certainly those were more than momentary spin-ups which that Little Storm That Shouldn’t Have put down.

How on earth did it do that? There was nothing happening synoptically that suggested even a remote possibility of tornadoes. So when that puny cell across the lake from me went tornado-warned on GR3 yesterday, I just shrugged it off. Obviously a fluke, some weak Doppler-detected rotation, signifying nothing.

Just goes to show how Mother Nature can mess with your head. According to the NWS office in Milwaukee, that little stinker put down a tornado that lasted 14 minutes, traveled four miles, and did EF1 damage. The level 2 velocity couplet on it was unmistakable. Here’s the full writeup by KMKX, complete with radar images and a photo of the storm right after the tornado had lifted.

Storm chaser Scott Weberpal speculated on Stormtrack that there may have been some kind of interaction between an outflow boundary left by earlier convection. I can’t imagine any better explanation for why what should have been a pussycat of a pulse-type summer storm turned into a barn wrecker. Had the storm gone tornadic farther east, the lake breeze might have been suspect, but the cell was well inland from Lake Michigan.

Today I noticed a couple storms over in the Flint area displaying weak rotation on the radar, and one of them took on that telltale supercellular shape. Given the anemic upper winds, I’d normally have instantly written them off, but after yesterday…well, I watched and wondered, not expecting anything and therefore not disappointed when nothing happened, but still curious. What might happen if any cells firing in that vicinity moved into the Huron lake breeze zone, where the veering surface winds were liable to back?

As it turns out, the storms behaved the way you’d have expected them to given their environment. The last of the line is presently moving through southeast Michigan. But dewpoints are still in the low 70s, and a few popcorn cells are sprinkling the radar. Through my sliding glass door, I can see a big, mushy tower making its debut. Think I’ll grab my saxophone and camera and head out to get some practice in. With a little luck, maybe I’ll get a few lightning photos as a bonus.

It’s July 4, Independence Day. Happy Birthday, America! For all the problems that face you, you’re still the best in so many, many ways. One of those ways, which may seem trite to anyone but a storm chaser, is your spring weather, which draws chasers like a powerful lodestone not only from the all over the country, but also from the four corners of the world.

This has been an incredible spring stormwise, but its zenith appears to have finally passed for everywhere but the northern plains. And right now, even those don’t look particularly promising. That’s okay. I think that even the most hardcore chasers have gotten their fill this year and are pleased to set aside their laptops and break out their barbecue grills.

Now is the time for Great Lakes chasers to set their sights on the kind of weather our region specializes in, which is to say, pop-up thunderstorms and squall lines. The former are pretty and entertaining. The latter can be particularly dramatic when viewed from the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, sweeping in across the water like immense, dark frowns on the edge of a cold front. If you enjoy lightning photography, the lakeshore is a splendid place to get dramatic and unobstructed shots. Not that I can speak with great authority, since so far my own lightning pictures haven’t been all that spectacular. But that’s the fault of the photographer, not the storms.

The images on this page are from previous years. So far this year I’ve been occupied mainly with supercells and tornadoes, but I’m ready to make the shift to more garden variety storms, which may not pack the same adrenaline punch but lack for nothing in beauty and drama.

July 4th is a date that cold fronts seem to write into their planners. I’ve seen a good number of fireworks displays in West Michigan get trounced by a glowering arcus cloud moving in over the festivities. But tonight looks promising for Independence Day events. Storms are on the way, but they should hold off till well after the party’s over.  That means we’ll get two shows–the traditional pyrotechnics with all the boom, pop, and glittering, multicolored flowers filling the sky; and later, an electrical extravaganza, courtesy of a weak cold front. A Fourth of July double-header: what could be finer than that?

After catching breakfast in Chamberlain, South Dakota, we–Mike Kovalchick, Bill and Tom Oosterbaan, and I–are heading west along I-90. We have plenty of time to determine where we want to camp out this afternoon until storms start firing later today.

If you’ve kept track of the present weather system, then you know that it has had a number of serious detractors, the chief one being a nasty cap. To complicate things, the NAM and GFS were initially wildly at odds. But Thursday night the GFS began to agree with the NAM on opening up an uncapped corridor from Nebraska into South Dakota, and from there the model forecasts became progressively more promising. The SPC Day One Convective Outlook now shows a 10 percent  possibility of tornadoes extending from the Nebraska border north through the Dakotas. The hub of the activity will most likely be in South Dakota, which means that we are sitting in the catbird seat.

It feels great to finally get back out on the road and chase the Plains again. I’ve missed the big action so far this spring. This setup may not be the year’s big event, but it shows promise, and it coincides with a time when I’ve got the funds to go after it. Whether or not we see a tornado today–and tomorrow, and maybe Monday, as we follow this system’s evolution–we’ll at least see some nice storms. And, I might add, some beautiful countryside. It’s been a few years since I’ve been in South Dakota. It’s good to be back!

It now seems a sure bet that the eastern Great Lakes is due for a spate of severe weather. The SPC is presently making it out to be a linear event, as is typical of cold fronts sweeping through our region, but the wind profiles suggest the possibility of supercells and tornadoes.

If you go by the present, 12Z NAM run, central Ohio appears to be the sweet spot, with a variety of parameters converging over or near a bullseye of 2,000 j/kg SBCAPE. Here are a few maps for forecast hour 21Z to give you an idea. Click on the images to enlarge them. The first shows the aforementioned SBCAPE (shaded), sea level pressure (contours), and surface wind barbs. Not a bad bit of instability if this scenario pans out.

In the second image, you can see a nice overlay of 55-60 kt 500 mb winds (shaded) over 35-40 kt 850 mb winds (contours). The wind barbs are for the 850 mb level. The H5 winds veer still further to the west. I think it’s safe to say that shear won’t be an issue, and 1 km VGP, not shown, is as high as 0.4 in the area of heightened instability. Helicity maxes are well to the north, but I wonder what kind of effective SRH we’ll wind up with where it counts.

The third map shows a Theta-e lobe pushing up into northern Ohio with a surface lifted index between -4 and -6 perched squarely over the axis. That should get the job done.

In the last map, three different significant tornado parameters–the well-known STP, the APRWX tornado index, and the Stensrud tornado risk–all converge nicely over the same spot near Newark, Ohio. Three overlays can be a bit difficult to decipher, so let me help: the STP is shaded, the APRWX is tightly contoured like an onion, and the Stensrud has broader contours, with its highest value circling the APRWX in a yellow ring.

All this to say, Friday may have some potential. I don’t get too excited about cold front events around here–not that we have many options in the Great Lakes, but a steady diet of squall lines has a way of lowering a person’s expectations. Of course, as soon as you let down your guard, along comes the exception to prove that storms in our area can and do deliver. Maybe this round will prove to one of those occasions. We’ll find out two days hence.

As I begin this post, the first major tornado-producing storm system of 2010 is moving to the east after taking 10 lives in the South yesterday. Already a tornado-breeder, the system matured yesterday into a wide-scale outbreak driven by hefty bulk shear, massive low-level helicities in the order of 600 and above, and CAPE values up to 2,500. Yazoo City, MS, was hit hard by a powerful, rain-wrapped wedge. The verdict remains open as to whether this was a single, long-lived tornado that traveled as much as 200 miles, or one in a series, which seems likelier.

Sorry, I can’t offer a write-up on yesterday’s storms. I was home sleeping, and I have no regrets that I missed anything. With the models suggesting rain-wrapped, low-visibility tornadoes rocketing along at 50 mph or more; with the potential for hydroplaning while driving at gonzo speeds in order to keep on top of fast-moving, rapidly morphing storms and avoid having them get on top of us; and with the logistical madness of three sleep-deprived chasers–Bill Oosterbaan, Mike Kovalchick, and me–having to backtrack afterward to Saint Louis where my car was parked and then drive 450 miles back to Grand Rapids, the negatives of chasing this big, messy, and dangerous tornado outbreak seemed to easily outweigh the potential payoffs.

So Bill, who was determined to catch the action, made arrangements to hook up with Kurt Hulst and Bill’s brother, Tom Oosterbaan, in Illinois, and then he dropped Mike and me off at my car. The two of us headed home, and I can tell you, it felt mighty good to crawl under the covers upon my return and sleep until 1:00 in the afternoon. After talking with Tom yesterday evening, I’m glad I chose as I did.

I may have more thoughts to share about yesterday’s scenario, but I’ll save them for another post. The previous two days in Texas and Kansas deserve some attention in their own right, and not just as the prequel to the big, day 3 outbreak. They may have been a bust for me tornado-wise, but they were nevertheless the first decent system of the year and my first chase out on the Plains. It was a blessing to get out on the road once again and see the vast, textured expanses of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles.

Naturally, the landscape included the TIV2, which at this point should be designated a mobile national monument of the Great Plains. Back in 2008 we had bumped into its predecessor in Nebraska; this Thursday, we pulled into a gas station in Pampa, gassed and Rain-Xed up, then drove around to the other side of the station, and surprise! There it was–the Tank and its entourage. Cool! Who can resist taking a few photos? Not me.

As for chasing storms, Thursday was a should’a. We should’a either listened to Mike and headed for western Kansas, where most of the tornadoes occurred later in the day, or else gone with Bill’s and my initial impulse to chase the bigger CAPE, albeit forecasted low helicities, near Childress, Texas. For that matter, if we had endured the initial grunge in Wheeler, or better yet, just parked along US 60 east of Pampa–in other words, if we had just sat and waited–we’d have been golden. Instead, we sacrificed an opportune position and went after some cells that fired to our northwest along the dryline. Doing so made a certain amount of sense, as those storms were already looking supercellular and were moving toward the warm front and better helicities, while the cells popping up to our south in advance of the dryline seemed to just sit there and languish. So after the northern storms we went.

Bad decision. One of the southern cells developed steam shortly after we made our move. We could still have turned around at that point, but we chose to commit to our decision and wound up betwixt and between the vortex breeding grounds to our south and north. As a result, we found ourselves looking forlornly at the radar as the southern cell shaped up beautifully and began churning out tornadoes, while our storms struggled valiantly but never quite got their act together. If there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s that good things come to those who wait. And, I might add, that model SRH is nice if you can get it to cooperate, but it can be deceptive. Helicity is prone to change with the storm environment in ways that forecast models don’t anticipate. If CAPE and 0-6 km shear are sufficient, storms may just generate their own low-level helicity.

Anyway, we chased the dryline storms and busted. Our storms tried hard to tornado, but they just couldn’t quite manage to produce. So instead of the blue ribbon, we wound up with honorable mention: some decent structure, including cool-looking wall clouds, a few funnels, and–as tail-end Charlie went high-precip in the Oklahoma panhandle–a nice, banded-looking storm with a formidable shelf cloud.

As for Friday, we picked exactly the right target up in northeast Kansas along US 75 just south of the Nebraska border. We were smack in the axis of a nice moisture plume. But nothing happened. As the afternoon progressed, the cumulus field we were sitting under began to generate towering cumuli, but these turkey towered and busted against a mid-level cap that just wouldn’t erode. So that was that. Looks like a lot of other chasers got disappointed as well by the northern play. It happens. We finally cut our losses around 7 p.m. and headed back east toward Saint Louis and a band of storms that was moving toward I-70. Ironically, one of these produced a series of tornadoes. If Thursday had been a should’a, Friday was an if-only. If only we’d targeted northeast Missouri…but there had been no reason to do so that we could see.

Now another storm system looks to be moving into the Midwest later this coming week. The action could be closer to home, but I’ll think about that in a day or two. Right now, it’s time to make this post, rest up, and get on with the rest of life.

If you’ve been following this blog lately, then you’re well aware that yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the 1965 Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak. The commemoration held at the Tornado Memorial Park in Dunlap, Indiana, came together beautifully thanks to the hard work of my friend Debbie Watters, who owns the park. To say that it was a memorable event understates some of the truly amazing things that transpired.

Dan McCarthy, the meteorologist in charge at KIND in Indianapolis, was the keynote speaker. Dan did a superb job describing the strides that severe weather forecasting and the warning system have taken since 1965, and explaining how the Palm Sunday Outbreak served as a catalyst for those changes. If there is any comfort to hearts that still ache over the loss of loved one in the storms, Dan suggested that at least part of it may lie in knowing that a tornado catastrophe of such magnitude is unlikely to ever happen again.

Several other speakers followed Dan. Last of all was Debbie. I think one reason she does so well behind a microphone is that she pours her heart out toward her listeners. At a gathering of tornado survivors and their families, the needs may not be readily apparent; but Debbie, having lost her brother Stevie in the Dunlap F5, knows what lies below the surface. It had to have taken some courage to address the subject of survivor guilt as honestly and straightforwardly as Debbie did, but it’s only in shining light on such a painful issue that its grip can perhaps be broken on people who, over four decades later, still wonder why they lived while their loved one died

At the end of the service, there was a balloon launch in loving memory of the Elkhart County tornado victims. It was a poignant moment, watching those bright, merry balloons soar skyward into the blue.

But it was the behind-the-scenes happenings, the interpersonal connections, that will live on in my mind. There were some heartwarming moments, and a few that were just plain incredible. Debbie had always wondered who the stranger was who saved her mother’s life after the tornado, and who sheltered the two of them in his car until an ambulance arrived. Yesterday, a woman introduced herself to Debbie as the man’s wife. You can imagine what a powerful meeting that was for both women.

Among the roughly 150 attendees, I was delighted to see Paul and Elizabeth Huffman. Paul is the retired Elkhart Truth photographer who took the famous image of the twin funnels straddling US 33 south of Dunlap, destroying the Midway Trailer Court. That photo, one of six in a sequence, is arguably the most famous and dramatic tornado photograph of all time, and one that has inspired more than one young kid to pursue meteorology as a career.

Now in his 80s, Paul is a peppery and humorous personality, and his wife, Elizabeth, is a sweetheart. It was fascinating, in talking with them, to get insights into how things played out that day. Paul wasn’t even aware of the twin-funnel structure when he snapped the photo; in his viewfinder he saw just the rightmost funnel. It was only when the startling image of “The Twins” emerged in development that Paul realized he had captured something extraordinary on film.

I was particularly pleased when one of the speakers, Brian Beaver–an award-winning radio correspondent formerly with IPR–took time to publicly recognize Paul and honor him for his achievement.

My friend Pat Bowman and her brother John were also present. But of course they would be–Pat is integrally knit into these events. She and Deb are my two “tornado ladies,” dear to each other and to me. The way that the three of us connected is a pretty incredible story in its own right, and it all started with Pat. Actually, it started long before, with a newspaper account of a young couple’s tragic loss of their child, and of a small boy’s prayers for them in response. There is a reason that Pat is very special to me. But that story is for another time.

The last photo on this page is one I will always treasure. That’s Elizabeth and Paul Huffman on the left. Debbie is the blonde, and that’s Pat on the right. God gifts us with people, and it was a blessing to me to see these four together. The threads of events that connect them are intricate and remarkable, and I feel privileged to see the connections continue to unfold in their lives and in mine.

An outbreak of severe thunderstorms spun off a series of damaging tornadoes in the Southeast earlier this evening. The SPC’s preliminary count shows eight tornado reports, seven in North Carolina and one in Florida.

Two trailer parks in Davidson County, North Carolina, sustained damage, with multiple injuries, and for Guilford County came this report:

GUILFORD COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGER CONFIRMED 20 STURDY HOMES DAMAGED NORTH OF HIGH POINT. (RAH)

In all, this evening has been an active one weatherwise, with low-topped supercells rumbling across the hills and flatlands from Florida on up to Virginia. As I write, three tornado warnings are in effect, though at this point they’re all Doppler warned and I think the storms are done producing for the night.

Of course I’ve done my share of armchair chasing. Here are a couple radar grabs of two North Carolina supercells. The first image, taken at 9:30, shows base reflectivity, and the second, captured 24 minutes earlier at 9:06, shows storm relative velocity. Don’t ask me to explain the lag time, because I can’t–I didn’t realize so much time had elapsed between image grabs until I looked at the file details a while later. No biggie, though–this isn’t a research paper, and you get a good idea of the progression of the storms.

They weren’t big storms, but they sure packed a punch. For me, this spring thus far has been a demonstration of how you don’t need 60s dewpoints and much CAPE at all in order to get tornadoes. Cold mid-level temps conspiring with  massive shear and hulking 1 km helicities can do a lot with dewpoints 55 degrees and even lower. Today’s 6 km shear has been in the order of 90 knots in places, with low-level helicities exceeding 400. That’ll get the job done, and evidently it did this evening.

Sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico remain cooler than normal, but with the GFS consistently wanting to bring in decent moisture–finally–into the Plains, and now with the NAM painting a similar picture, what could prove to be a very active tornado season may at last be stirring to life. Tonight may prove to have been a warning shot fired across the bow. Storm chasers, got your Rain-X ready?

April 11 this year will mark the 45th anniversary of the second worst Midwestern tornado outbreak of modern times. The 1965 Palm Sunday Outbreak is noteworthy not so much for the number of tornadoes involved as for their violence and the number of fatalities they produced. Out of 38 “significant” (F2 or greater) tornadoes that occurred in six state over 11 hours, 19 were rated at F4 and two at F5. Going by NOAA’s death toll and adding to it one Iowa resident who died a month later from his injuries, 272 men, women, and children lost their lives in the storms.

One of the victims was Stevie Forsythe, the brother of my friend Debbie Forsythe-Watters. Debbie is the owner of a tornado memorial park that occupies the property where her childhood home in Dunlap, Indiana, just south of Elkhart, was swept away by F5 winds. To learn more about the park, check out my earlier post on the Dunlap tornado memorial, complete with photos.

Debbie is currently planning this year’s commemorative event, to be held on the date of the tornadoes: Sunday, April 11. If you take an interest in this historic and influential weather disaster, you may wish to attend the service. It will be held on the park grounds. The time has yet to be determined, but it will likely be in the late afternoon.

I will post more information as details are solidified.

Some storm chasers pride themselves in being minimalists who have a knack for intercepting tornadoes without much in the way of gadgetry. Others are techies whose vehicles are tricked out with mobile weather stations and light bars. It’s all part of the culture of storm chasing, but the bottom line remains getting to the storms.

To my surprise, while I draw the line at gaudy externals, I’ve discovered that I lean toward the techie side. For me, storm chasing is a lot like fishing. Once you’ve bought your first rod and reel and gotten yourself a tackle box, you find that there’s no such thing as having enough lures, widgets, and whizbangs. You can take the parallels as deep as you want to. Radar software is your fish finder. F5 Data, Digital Atmosphere, and all the gazillion free, online weather maps from NOAA, UCAR, COD, TwisterData, and other sources are your topos. And so it goes.

A couple years ago I spent $300 on a Kestrel 4500 weather meter. It’s a compact little unit that I wear on a lanyard when I’m chasing. It weighs maybe twice as much as a bluebird feather, but it will give me temperature, dewpoint, wind speed, headwinds, crosswinds, wind direction, relative humidity, wet bulb temperature, barometric pressure, heat index, wind chill, altitude, and more, and will record trends of all of the above.

I use it mostly to measure the dewpoint and temperature.

Could I have gotten something that would give me that same basic information for a third of the cost, minus all the other features that I rarely or never use? Heck yes. Nevertheless, I need to have the rest of that data handy. Why? Never mind. I just do, okay? I need it for the same reason that an elderly, retired CEO needs a Ferrari in order to drive 55 miles an hour for thirty miles in the passing lane of an interstate highway. I just never know when I might need the extra informational muscle–when, for instance, knowing the speed of crosswinds might become crucial for pinpointing storm initiation.

If I lived on the Great Plains, with Tornado Alley as my backyard, I might feel differently. But here in Michigan, I can’t afford to head out after every slight-risk day in Oklahoma. Selectivity is important. I guess that’s my rationale for my preoccupation with weather forecasting tools, along with a certain vicarious impulse that wants to at least be involved with the weather three states away even when I can’t chase it. Maybe I can’t always learn directly from the environment, but I can sharpen my skills in other ways.

Does having all this stuff make me a better storm chaser? No, of course not. Knowledge and experience are what make a good storm chaser, and no amount of technology can replace them. Put a $300 Loomis rod in the hands of a novice fisherman and chances are he’ll still come home empty-handed; put a cane pole in the hands of a bass master and he’ll return with a stringer full of fish. On the other hand, there’s something to be said for that same Loomis rod in the hands of a pro, and it’s not going to damage a beginner, even if he’s not capable of understanding and harnessing its full potential. Moreover, somewhere along the learning curve between rookie and veteran, the powers of the Loomis begin to become apparent and increasingly useful.

Now, I said all of that so I can brag to you about my latest addition to my forecasting tackle box: RAOB (RAwinsonde OBservation program). This neat little piece of software is to atmospheric soundings what LASIK is to eye glasses. The only thing I’ve seen that approaches it is the venerable BUFKIT, and in fact, the basic RAOB program is able to process BUFKIT data. But I find BUFKIT difficult to use to the point of impracticality, while RAOB is much easier in application, and, once you start adding on its various modules, it offers so much more.

RAOB is the world’s most powerful and innovative sounding software. Automatically decodes data from 35 different formats and plots data on 10 interactive displays including skew-Ts, hodographs, & cross-sections. Produces displays of over 100 atmospheric parameters including icing, turbulence, wind shear, clouds, inversions and much more. Its modular design permits tailored functionality to customers from 60 countries. Vista compatible.

–From the RAOB home page

The basic RAOB software arrived in my box a couple weeks ago courtesy of Weather Graphics. It cost me $99.95 and included everything needed to customize a graphic display of sounding data from all over the world.

I quickly realized, though, that in order to get the kind of information I want for storm chasing, I would also need to purchase the analytic module. Another $50 bought me the file, sent via email directly from RAOB. I downloaded it last night, and I have to say, I am absolutely thrilled with the information that is now at my disposal.

Here is an example of the RAOB display, including skew-T/log-P diagram with lifted parcel, cloud layers, hodograph, and tables containing ancillary information. Click on the image to enlarge it. The display shown is the severe weather mode, with the graphs on the left depicting storm character, dry microburst potential, and storm category.

The sounding shown is the October 13, 2009, 12Z for Miami, Florida–a place that’s not exactly the Zion of storm chasing, but it will do for an example. Note that the negative area–that is, the CIN–is shaded in dark blue. The light blue shading depicts the region most conducive to hail formation. Both are among the many available functions of the analytic module.

The black background was my choice. RAOB is hugely customizable, and its impressive suite of modules lets you tailor-make a sounding program that will fit your needs beautifully. Storm chasers will want to start with the basic and analytic modules. With that setup, your $150 gets you a wealth of sounding data on an easy-to-use graphic interface. It’s probably all you’ll ever need and more–though if you’re like me, at some point you’ll no doubt want to add on the interactive and hodo module.

And the special data decoders module.

Oh yeah, and the turbulence and mountain wave module. Gotta have that one.

Why?

Never mind. You just do, okay?

I love this balmy, blue fall weather. But down inside me, not too far from the surface, convective starvation is gnawing away. Does 2009 have a “second season” in store? Judging by this year’s insipid, ridge-robbed primary storm season, there’s reason to wonder, but I sure hope so.

There may be a flicker of hope for a week from now, at least if you go by the ECMWF.

ECMWF 500 mb winds for Sunday night.

As for the GFS…mmmph.  More zonal flow, though the sea level pressure map suggests a hint of troughing for the northern CONUS. Not anything to pique one’s interest, though. And here’s the SPC’s 4-8 day outlook:

VALID 171200Z - 221200Z

   ...DISCUSSION...
   GENERALLY BENIGN CONDITIONS -- WITH RESPECT TO THE POTENTIAL FOR A
   SUBSTANTIAL SEVERE EVENT -- ARE FORECAST THROUGH DAY 5-6 /I.E. FRI.
   AND SAT. SEPT. 18-19/...AFTER WHICH SOME FAIRLY SUBSTANTIAL MODEL
   DIFFERENCES BECOME APPARENT BETWEEN THE GFS AND ECMWF.  THOUGH SOME
   HINTS THAT SEVERE POTENTIAL COULD INCREASE FROM DAY 6
   ONWARD...CONFIDENCE REMAINS QUITE LOW ATTM.  UNTIL THEN...SEVERE
   POTENTIAL APPEARS LIMITED AT BEST...AS SLOWLY PROGRESSIVE PATTERN
   ALOFT KEEPS THE MUCH OF THE U.S. UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF LONGWAVE
   MEAN RIDGING.  GIVEN THE LACK OF APPRECIABLE SEVERE POTENTIAL DURING
   THE FIRST HALF OF THE PERIOD...AND LACK OF CONFIDENCE IN MODEL
   GUIDANCE BEYOND...NO SEVERE THREAT AREAS WILL BE HIGHLIGHTED THIS
   FORECAST.

I’m rooting for the Euro. It sure would be nice to see some storms. Any kind of storms. Just some decent lightning would be much appreciated right about now.

As I’ve said more than once this year, I’m crossing my fingers but I’m sure not holding my breath.