Updraft: May 2, 2012 Archive

More intense storms may stay south of Minn. tonight

Posted at 3:46 PM on May 2, 2012 by Craig Edwards
Filed under: Severe weather

Mother Nature has yet to show all her cards for the potential development of strong thunderstorms this evening.

Yesterday's severe storms were a bit easier to predict. This afternoon, signs indicate that storms might be more likely to the south of Minnesota where the atmosphere is really juiced up. Dew points are well into the 60s in Iowa.

Source: NOAA SPC

This graphic from the Storm Prediction Center from 3 p.m. CDT shows temperatures in the red lines and dew points in the green colors. Surface wind field is also included. The dew point at Mason City was 65 degrees at mid afternoon.

NOAA SPC is focusing the concern for severe weather along the boundary of 60 degree dew points and deeper moisture field to our south.

This shows the Storm Prediction Center's latest thoughts on probabilities of damaging wind storms tonight.

The visible satellite image from 3:45 p.m. CDT indicates were cloud layer boundaries are located. We are awaiting a trigger to advance at the mid levels of the atmosphere to ignite storms this evening. That makes it a little tough to rule out severe weather in the Twin Cities. The more intense storms should straddle the Iowa/Minnesota border.

Predicting the specific location and timing remains a work in progress. You'll want to stay tuned.

At 4 p.m. CDT the mercury was one degree shy of 80 degrees at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. If we reach 80 it will equal the high for this year recorded on March 17. No 80 degree reading was registered in April in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The normal high for the date is 65 degrees. It was 81 degrees at the Flying Cloud airport at 4 p.m. CDT.