Beau Dodson's WeatherTalk Blog

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Good morning, everyone.  I was off yesterday for travel!  I am back in the weather chair today.

We have low humidity levels today.  That will raise concerns about field fire risks.  Use care if you must burn fields or brush.

A pleasant weather day is ahead of us.  Highs in the 70s!  It is going to feel great.  Spring weather!

I do not have any weather concerns today through Wednesday afternoon.

A southerly system will move through the region Wednesday night and Thursday.  This system will bring a few showers and thunderstorms back into the area.

The probability of rain will be a bit higher in the south vs the north.

Here is the rain probability for Wednesday night (7 PM to 7 AM)

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This is the rain probability for Thursday (7 AM to 7 PM).

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Rain totals will be on the light side.  Ranging from none to 0.15″.  Slightly higher if you end up under a thunderstorm.

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There will be a few rumbles of thunder with this system, as well.  Mainly along and south of the MO/AR and KY/TN border.  No severe weather concerns locally.

I can’t rule out some small hail with the thunderstorms.

The future-cast radar shows the Wednesday PM/Thursday system.

Double-click the animation to enlarge it.

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Thursday night into early Friday afternoon will be mild.  Increasingly breezy.  Dry.

A much stronger cold front will push into the region on Friday and Saturday.

This is the system that people are posting about.  There is a lot of chatter about an outbreak of severe weather.

I would limit those concerns this far out.  We still have several days to monitor this system.

Wind shear will certainly be high.

Wind shear is the change of wind speed and direction with height.  Or, in other words, as you move higher into the atmosphere.

850 MB winds (a few thousand feet aloft) will be ripping along Friday night.  Wind shear is one ingredient for severe weather.

The GFS model has 75+ knot 850 MB winds.  That is strong.

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Lift is another ingredient for severe weather.  We will have lift from an incoming cold front.

Another ingredient for severe weather is moisture.  That is the one element missing from this event.  Thus, there are questions about the severe threat.

There are questions about whether our dew points will be high enough for severe thunderstorms.

Last week, we had a similar setup.  We ended up with no severe weather.

If dew points are higher, then we will have severe weather.

Currently, the data continues to trend lower with dew points on Friday and Friday night.  Then, a surge of higher dew points on Saturday over my southeastern counties (Pennyrile area of western Kentucky).

We still have several days to monitor it.

I like to ramp up and not ramp down.  This means you don’t forecast 12 inches of snow five days out.  You start low and then ramp up as confidence in the event increases.

Again, I am not saying we won’t have concerns.   I need to monitor the data over the coming days and then ramp up into the event.

This is the current Storm Prediction Center’s/NOAA severe weather outlook.  The orange zone is a level three risk.  We will see how this evolves.

Last week, they had us in a level three risk five days out.  We ended up with no severe weather.

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Here are the dew points maps.

This is the 7 PM Friday map.

The blue color represents 60 degree (dew points) and above.  I watch for 58 degrees and above in the dew point department.  You can, under certain circumstances, have severe weather with lower dew points.  It just becomes less likely.

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On Saturday, dew points surge northward ahead of a secondary cold front.  This is for Saturday morning.  Those dews would then spread eastward.  There remain questions about Saturday.  It is possible that the Saturday system will stay a bit farther east and will spare our region.  I will be monitoring trends.

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Here is the SPC severe weather outlook for Saturday.

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The future-cast radar shows the Friday/Saturday system.

We will have to see how far west that Saturday (second surge) is placed.

Double-click the animation to enlarge it.

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Gusty wind will be another concern from Friday into Saturday.

This is a deep area of low pressure.  I expect 20 to 35 mph wind gusts Friday into Saturday.  They could be even higher at times.

That is because of the tight pressure gradient.

See those black lines?  Those are pressure lines.  Your home barometer measures those.

When they are tightly packed, that means strong and gusty non-thunderstorm winds.  We call those gradient winds.  A windy weekend ahead of us.

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Gusty winds Friday into Saturday.  Perhaps even some gusts above 40 mph.

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Rainfall totals with the weekend system will vary based on thunderstorm activity.  Here is the current outlook.

Double-click the image to enlarge it.

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Monitor updates concerning the weekend storm system.

Make sure you have three to five ways of receiving severe weather information.

Your Beau Dodson Weather app is one of those ways.

Don’t forget that I have partnered with Weather Call, as well.

They will call your phone when you are in a warning.  This is great for overnight tornado outbreaks.

https://weathercallservices.com/beau-dodson-weather