WWU075

Good evening weenies. We've got 2 events coming up.

One tomorrow night and one Saturday

Let's get into it

WWU075

Wednesday Night and Saturday 

(2/12 and 2/15) 

Tomorrow

Saturday

OH MY WEENIES! Two fairly interesting events in two days. How exciting! 

This report will mainly focus on tomorrow's threats since it's in the scope of the close-range models. Updates to follow on Saturday's event. 

Here's a shot of tomorrow's tornado threat, as you can see, we're well within the range of some storms. 

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Below is our local office's take on the event. Same graphics, just closer.NWS BHM loves us and also gives us timing. 

Behold!

A rare evening event for us!

Truly a beautiful sight to not have an overnight event for once. 

So what do the ingredients look like? 

Weenieings

Weenies, this is even more exciting for me than it is for you - Pivotal Weather released a Beta version and it's the best thing I've ever seen. I wish all of you could have heard the sound I just made. 

For reference -- this is the old version

Aaaaaand the new one:

Brb CRYING

Ok let's get into the actual weenieings. 

Once again, we need to look out for the little bubbles before the line, but as you can see, that isn't really going to be the major event. 

However, as is often common in the winter months (right after the first fake spring), we need to watch the line itself for spin up tornadoes. The tornadoes formed within the line are called "QLCS" or (brace yourselves) Quasilinear Convective System tornadoes. These types of tornadoes like to spin up and dissipate between radar scans (<5 minutes) - so that keeps it nice and exciting. Thankfully the tornadoes formed are ~generally~ quite weak, but that doesn't mean they won't take out your carport. 

As far as the setup goes, that means that the energy that usually outpaces the front will also be present WITH the front, the front is what will be directly pushing the juiciness away. Let's look at the juiciness together. 

Not wild on the Hot Ham Air™, but enough is present to cause us some issues. 

I've included our fun squiggle chart again (CAPE + Hodographs). The hodographs are encouraging storm development, but the energy will likely be capping the possible severity. 

Summary - There is certainly a chance for some tornadoes tomorrow, but I think the bigger threat will be the wind and rain, but a tornado can't be ruled out.

Quick note on Saturday now, since it's shaping up to be the bigger issue. 

We're still 5 days out, so we only have long range models - which are notoriously bad at convective prediction (Hence why we have the close range-convective models, the HRRR and NAM3km), but the GFS is already trying to plop out some supercells for us given the rest of the setup.

Let's look at the temperature shift for Saturday

BOOM - see how we go from 70s to high 40s in less than 24 hours? Yeah that's not supposed to happen.

This is the best view to see how strong this system Saturday can be, but we will get better predictions within the next few days. If it keeps developing like it is, expect another weenie report. 

As always - watch your local news during the day - I'm not your primary source for emergency alerts.

Be safe tomorrow and stay Weather Weenie Aware

I hope you have enjoyed today's weather weenie update. Stay Weather Weenie Aware.