Experimental Thunderstorm Forecasts

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I'm going to try something here because it may be useful to our readers. These are experimental thunderstorm forecasts from the National Weather Service.

Valid at 7pm this evening:

The above graphic, from the National Weather Service, simulates what the radar may show around 7pm this evening. When trying to interpret this, the timing could be an hour or so off either way and the position of the storms could be off by 50 mi. or so in any direction. I have also highlighted (red arrows) that the model is trying to tell us the position of potential thunderstorms in Kansas even though they are not well-defined in this image. Note the very strong thunderstorms in the general vicinity of Omaha.

I do agree that there is little risk of severe weather in this region before about 4pm.

There are two primary clusters of storms in the forecast valid at 9pm this evening:
Strong thunderstorms are shown between Omaha and Mason City.

Farther south,
there is a strong cluster of storms from Wichita to Weatherford, OK (again, do not take these positions and times too literally) with possible thunderstorms farther north in Kansas and Nebraska (arrows).

If you use these forecasts as a general guide, they can be useful in planning your activities.

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 9, 2011 at 11:02 AM

    Mike, where do you get those maps? I've tried googling and can't find. Wanted to look at other parts of the country (southeast). Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mike SmithApril 9, 2011 at 3:29 PM

    They come from NOAA's HRRR model.

    ReplyDelete

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