As I write, I’m heading west down I-80 with my storm chasing buddy Bill Oosterbaan. Our target: Waterloo, Iowa. The 9Z RUC shows a nice convergence of 850 and 500 mb jets overspreading massive CAPE by 21Z, with a robust 200 mb jet nosing in. Progged surface winds could be better, but skew-Ts still show nice veering with height, and storm relative inflow is majorly backed.

Oh, yeah…and we’re looking at dewpoints of 75 degrees and higher, with dewpoint depressions around 5 degrees. LCLs should be so low we may have to tunnel underground to find the cloud bases.

The SPC has hatched out this area for tornadoes. No surprise. After a relatively modest season, we may be on the verge of a significant outbreak. It’s a bit sobering to think that Parkersburg, Iowa, could get slammed again. I expect we’ll see a PDS statement at some point today, and I wonder whether the outlook won’t get bumped from a moderate risk to a high risk as well.

Tomorrow also looks to be a hugely active day, and the latest SREF places a sigtor in Michigan. So stay tuned. I’m sure there will be more to come.