Severe Weather Friday

Well tomorrow we will have the best set-up of 2010, here in Ohio, for severe weather.  Early tomorrow morning a warm front will lift from the south; with this we could see a few showers in the morning hours, although not looking too promising.  A surge of warm, moist air will arrive for the afternoon.  We should be able to reach 80 degrees without a problem and enough humidity to make it "feel" like the warmest, stickiest day of 2010 so far... meaning great conditions for storms.  Tomorrow, Friday, evening a strong cold front will punch into the area with a line of thunderstorms. This "squall line" will likely contain very strong winds and potential for dangerous hail.  However, there is more....

Think about a time you were outside before a storm came through, remember how the winds kicked up before the rain or storm actually got to you?  Think of that wind as a wave.... This wave will travel in front of the squall line and cause the air in front of the line to lift into the atmosphere.  Think of the fair weather, puffy cumulus clouds you see in the atmosphere on a nice day....they are short, but if you stretch them higher (with an updraft) and they become storm clouds, cumulonimbus.  The wave may fire off a few supercell storms in front of the squall line.  There is a slight chance, if conditions are proper, for tornadic activity with these supercell storms.  The chance is pretty small, but non-the-less we will be on top of the storms all night.  It also appears better storm conditions will be in place to the east of us, so they may see worse weather, but we still need to be on our toes for what we get as the storms start really developing.

Now for the timing.....the actual front looks to pass through the Miami Valley between 6PM and 2AM Friday night. The storms out ahead of the cold front will fire up near or shortly after peak heating with the line forming in a SW-NE line and sliding from the NW.  I originally had Friday off, but with the circumstances, I was given today off in order to cover the storms tomorrow night.  Jeff Booth will be monitoring things in the station tomorrow night and I will be out in the thick of things keeping an eye on the situation from the ground.  I will be updating my personal twitter account www.twitter.com/AndrewBMichael with the conditions I see from the ground, and for up-to-the-second updates on the watches and warnings check out www.twitter.com/ABC22FOX45. 

Also, I posted the links to my first couple of stories from Natural Disaster Week, and here is my final video on Weather Spotters.  Hope you enjoyed the series and took away some useful information...  See you all tomorrow, and make sure not to let Dorthy or Toto wander off in the afternoon... Just tell the lady on the bike and basket to keep on pedaling.  Have a good one, and for all our sakes, I hope there is no tornado tomorrow.

Best,
Andrew Buck Michael