How to Quantify Severe Storm Outbreak

AFTERNOON UPDATE: We have clarified our take on the storm system:

And the NWS maintains their Slight Risk forecast.

MORNING ENTRY:

To quote from our Breaking Weather News Page...

Stay tuned for quotes from AccuWeather.comSevere Weather Expert Henry Margusity (BIO | PREMIUM | PRO), who has taken up residence next to me in our new office (sorry, he's behind me so you won't see him on the J-CAM). He's looking at the models as we speak and in fact just said that the GFS is painting a dire picture of the next two weeks showing lots of severe weather.

The National Weather Service, thus far, is of severe storms for the Plains, though it is a wide one. We will see if they upgrade that to moderate later today, which they often do. The map below combines their "Day 1" and "Day 2" outlooks (remember, the area in question is to the right of the arrow). So, you can see that there is a narrow but tall band today and a much larger area tomorrow.

So who's right? Is this outbreak going to be a big deal, and if so, where? Well, to quantify this latest severe weather outbreak, you need to ask yourself if you are concerned with one specific point (your summer home in Dallas), or are you concerned with how big of an area the severe weather will cover. Or, are you just a severe enthusiast / storm chaser looking to bag the biggest, most powerful storms in the outbreak?

Now, those of you who read my blog before the last outbreak, which was correctly predicted by maximum CAPE amounts, are probably going to ask me what the CAPE's saying now. Well, with the following disclaimers...

The models aren't always right


You really should look at , SKEW-T's, Henry and other tools to forecast



I might not always have time to provide you with this information but you can get these graphics in real-time on our (from our site)

Here's what I see this morning:

NAMWRF: The CAPE output from this model says that Thursday will be worse, in coverage and CAPE values, than Wednesday, but Friday will be similar to Thursday. Thursday's concentration is in southern Texas while Friday it will be in the northeast part of the state.

NAMWRF CAPE THURSDAY EVENING

NAMWRF CAPE FRIDAY EVENING

GFS: This model's CAPE output disagrees with the NAMWRF, believing that today's outbreak will have higher values than tomorrow's, and that the worst of both will be in southern Texas. But Friday takes the CAKE if you're pardon the pun, with a large area of juicy 2000+ CAPE from northeast Mexico to northeast Texas.

GFS CAPE WEDNESDAY EVENING

GFS CAPE THURSDAY EVENING

GFS CAPE FRIDAY EVENING

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