The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) has issued a Slight Risk for a small bullseye in the Nebraska panhandle and northeastern Colorado.
There was no tornado threat originally, but now the SPC has bumped it up to a 5% Tornado threat.
The surface map shows a moderate south and southeasterly breeze, temperatures in the upper 70s F, and dewpoints in the upper 50s F. These are good signs.
Looking at the SPC Mesoscale Map, six hours from now, there is a forecasted 60 kt deep-layer shear (0-6 km) max coinciding with a Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) max of 2000 J/kg, all piling up just northwest of Sterling, CO.
The biggest problem so far this morning is the cloud cover. There is a cirrus shield over a good part of Colorado. The surface map shows that the sensors can see through the clouds, so they aren’t think, and perhaps they will mix out.
The good news with the cloud cover is it does help me locate the cold front that the SPC mentions in their description. I drew a blue line on it in this image. The red circle is the area that is receiving the most heating right now, and I expect that red circle to expand westward as some of these clouds mix out.
For now, we are targeting Sterling, with a bunch of options to travel several directions from there. I don’t think we’ll have to wander far to get to today’s threat.
Thank you for reading my post.
The forecasts from the National Weather Service are from The NWS Homepage. The upper air soundings and mesoscale analysis plots are from the Storm Prediction Center website. The satellite data, model data, and forecasted soundings are from College of DuPage – SATRAD
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