Beau Dodson's WeatherTalk Blog

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Avoid flooded roadways. Water continues to recede in many areas.  Larger rivers, however, continue to rise.

River and lake stages.  Forecasts.  Click here.

We are waking up to clouds over our northern counties.  Mostly clear elsewhere.

That will be the general rule today.  A fast-moving weak wave could bring a few sprinkles today over our northern counties.

A stronger system will push southeast into the region tonight with scattered showers and thunderstorms.

A cold front arrives on Thursday and Thursday evening.

The cold front will deliver a higher chance of thunderstorms.  I had hoped we would avoid severe weather, but it now looks like we will have a level one and two risk of severe thunderstorms.

Here is the official Storm Prediction Center outlook.  The dark green is the level one severe risk (lowest).  The yellow is the level two severe weather risk.

The primary concern is large hail.  A small risk of damaging wind.  The tornado risk is minimal (never zero when you have severe storms).

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You can see the CAPE in this graphic.  CAPE is instability.  Think of CAPE as energy.  Thunderstorms feed off of CAPE.

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Dew points are not all that high.  I usually look for 58 degrees and above when forecasting severe weather.

With hail, it can be lower.

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Overall, it is a decent setup for some large hail reports.  Then, a lower risk of damaging wind.

Monitor your Beau Dodson Weather App.  I will send out some messages.

Thunderstorm chances will be pushing off to the southeast during the evening hours on Thursday.  Bringing an end to rain chances.

Rainfall totals will mostly be light.  Thunderstorms can always enhance rain totals.

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Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will be dry.

Another cold front enters the region on Monday and Tuesday.  This will bring additional thunderstorms.  For now, the severe risk appears low.  I will monitor it.

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Double-click the animation to enlarge it.

Double-click the animation to enlarge it.

Hrrr model

This is the NAM model.

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