2011 Spring/Summer/Fall Weather Thread

[adamb100]

Today is the first day of potential severe weather for Wisconsin in Spring. Thought it was only fitting for a new thread.

 

Theres some Tornado Watches and Thunderstorm warnings out tonight.

[hawing]

Ah, adamb, you beat me to the creation of this thread. Madison just had a brief round of hail. We heard a few loud thumps on the house and I've got Facebook friends posting photos of marble to quarter-sized hailstones.

 

With the amount of severe weather in southern Wisconsin tonight, I'm mildly surprised we don't have a ball game to go to until tomorrow.

[NeedMoreFans]

I guess places out by Costco in Middleton had tennis ball-sized hail. We are 3 miles from Costco, and had some quarter-sized hail. It was loud, and our deck was nice and white.

[trwi7]

Hartland got hail twice today. Once at around 10:30 this morning and again about a half hour ago.

[NeedMoreFans]

The NWS already has a moderate threat for sever weather on Sunday for

us. It's not often they have this 2-3 days out like this.

 

 

http://images.yuku.com/image/gif/272356cf96b5877675cd419e1e38664997ba487.gif

[owbc]

Nice work bringing in the SPC outlook. Definitely going to be some nasty storms. Hail and wind appear to be the main threats. The really serious storm chasers are not convinced of the tornado threat but there will probably be a few.

 

Oh, and it will feel like mid-summer with dew points in the 60s and temperatures in the 80s.

[hawing]

The NWS already has a moderate threat for sever weather on Sunday for

us. It's not often they have this 2-3 days out like this.

The NWS started talking about this on Tuesday (though the Storm Prediction Center doesn't go out more than a 2-3 days). Some of you already know of the hawing party's unusual and perverse talent for encountering severe weather between Madison and Miller Park - so my only cynical surprise is that it'll take almost a full week into the Brewers' home season before we run into something (I hope not literally).

 

Edit: and this morning's hazardous weather outlook suggests that the SPC may change the threat for Sunday to "high."

[homer]

It's supposed to be 80 tomorrow here in Chicago. My body might go into shock.

[owbc]

They will probably go to a high risk if everything holds. They only average about 3 "high risk" days per year over the entire country, so it is definitely not something to take lightly.

 

The last high risk over Wisconsin was June 7, 2007 which was notable because Madison closed schools for it. Nothing happened in Southern WI but it did produce a long track tornado in Oconto county whose damage path is still visible from space.

 

The storms will be moving at 60-70 mph so it is important to take any severe weather warnings seriously.

[adamb100]

The storm has really brewed up in Iowa. A tornado was already reported there.

[hawing]

The Weather Channel's "TorCon" tornado-condition index rating for Wisconsin Sunday is 8 of 10. Yikes. And with the fun already starting to the west, I am predicting sleep deprivation for myself tomorrow.

[ilovebeer]

wtmj says 80 in Milwaukee for sunday, i wonder if the roof will be open?

[trwi7]

wtmj says 80 in Milwaukee for sunday, i wonder if the roof will be open?

Not with the storms that are expected to accompany the warm weather.

 

 

[1992casey]

The storms will be moving at 60-70 mph so it is important to take any severe weather warnings seriously.

I'm glad you mentioned that we should be paying attention. Too often, TV interrupts programming for stuff that isn't serious. The unfortuante effect is that people tend to blow off the important stuff.

 

The other night, a Milwaukee channel interrupted programming to talk about weather that wasn't imminent and wasn't all that severe. All this interruption amounted to was a three minute pimp for the 10:00 news.

[hawing]

Well, the SPC prediction for today remains "moderate" and wasn't changed to "high" - so we've got that going for us, which is nice.

The current forecast makes it sound like the storm threat begins after 4:00, so an open roof is enough of a possibility that I'll bring sunscreen.

[owbc]

Very interesting setup today. No high risk because outflow from last night's storms will suppress the storms from firing until the late afternoon. This will also prevent as widespread of a severe outbreak as was originally anticipated. That being said, any storms that do fire will be capable of producing very large hail and tornadoes.

 

I'm confident that storms will fire right around the Mississippi River this afternoon and then race to the NE at 50-60 mph. The best chance of tornadoes is over western WI and especially central and northern portions of the state. It is important to take any severe weather warnings seriously because these storms will produce weather more commonly seen in tornado alley than Wisconsin.

 

I doubt they will open the roof because if it does decide to rain it will be too windy to close it.

[hurricanecrush]

According to the Brewers page on FB, the roof is supposed to be open. I live in the 3rd ward on the 4th floor but I can't see MP from here to see if it's open. I have a friend on the 6th floor... I think he can see it but I haven't heard back from him yet. BTW, I'm going to the game today and I'm excited to break out the shorts.

[owbc]

Latest trends continue to indicate that this will be primarily a Central/Northern WI event (in terms of the supercell/tornado threat). The best chance for a large or long-track tornado is in NW Wisconsin around Eau Claire. Southern WI will eventually get storms with the cold front, but not until well after dark. Expect to see a line of storms blow up around Rochester at about 3-4 PM and then race off across central and northern WI. The line will then continue to develop SW along the cold front. Storms will reach Madison in the 9-10 PM range most likely.

 

There could be a few storms that form ahead of the main line--in that case Madison and Milwaukee could be impacted earlier in the evening and with more dangerous weather than currently anticipated. Because of the inherent uncertainties in predicting where these storms will initiate, it is best to continue to follow the forecasts carefully, especially when tornado watches are issued later today when conditions become more favorable for storm formation.

[adamb100]

Couple tornados already reported in the north part of Wisconsin. It appears looking at radar that a cell developed and is targetting madision and possible SE Wisconsin.

[Hammer]

Tornado warning for my house...should be here in about 10-15 mins. Yuck.

[owbc]

Judging by the radar, that storm near Appleton has some huge hail and probably a tornado.

 

Edit: tornado and baseball sized hail now officially reported with that storm. Look out.

[hawing]

I'm kind of stunned that there are watch boxes in a nearly unbroken line from northern Wisconsin down through like Oklahoma - but the southern two tiers of Wisconsin counties are not in any watch. Stay safe, those of you in the paths.

[NeedMoreFans]

Dane, Green, and Rock counties were all added to the tornado watch, which means there is now an unbroken line from the UP to the OK/TX border that is under a tornado watch. Crazy...

 

The line just moved through Middleton. Pretty weak here. Within 5 minutes of it passing, I saw the moon and stars. Now to cool the house down.

[owbc]

Wisconsin really dodged a bullet today. Things never destabilized as much as they could have and there was a strong capping inversion due to outflow from Saturday's storms. The original forecasts were for widespread severe weather but all the storm reports were confined to a few individual storms. There could still be some severe weather on that narrow line moving through Southern WI, but it's too stable for anything major.

[jazzytrav]

Judging by the radar, that storm near Appleton has some huge hail and probably a tornado.

 

Edit: tornado and baseball sized hail now officially reported with that storm. Look out.

Yup, I have friends in Oshkosh that saw baseball-sized hail. I'm in Neenah, just got up from the basement to start uploading the strobe lightning that came before the rain/wind started. I'll post the video when it finishes uploading to youtube.