August 2019 Observations and Discussion

[james1976]

Another beautiful summer evening! Clear skies, pleasant temps, low humidity and locust making noise! Out on the deck grilling some awesome food and taking it all in. Sun is already setting. Autumn is coming fast!

[james1976]

Local met has mid 80s and humid next weekend. That Aug 6-12 cooldown is not looking to pan out. Couple days around 80 is the best we may get.

[Tom]

Enhanced Risk for much of the MW region for later tonight...CAM's show MN/IA are in the best spot for action later this afternoon...

 

 

 

[St Paul Storm]

Severe thunderstorm watch just posted, until 3pm. Looks like damaging winds may be the biggest threat. Not sure what to expect locally. Some cams have the approaching line from the NW dying before it reaches here and then refiring south. Others have the line blasting through. Shear actually looks halfway decent so I wouldn’t be surprised if a tornado or two spins up.

[Hawkeye]

I wish it was 'enhanced' for rain instead of wind.

[Niko]

Currently 73F here in NYC and feels fairly comfortable outside. Possible t'stms tomorrow. Perhaps strong to locally severe. What a beautiful stretch of days here.

[East Dubzz]

Man I hope we get some rain tonight. 

[Andie]

Enhanced Risk for much of the MW region for later tonight...CAM's show MN/IA are in the best spot for action later this afternoon...

Not a chance here.

[St Paul Storm]

Enhanced area pulled northeast quite a bit.

[Iowawx]

I am hoping for and expecting some heavy rains tonight. I finished July about 2 inches below normal for rainfall here. Things are getting really dry around here and that is not good. The normal rainfall here for the month of August is 4.43 inches. 

 

I hope to get at least 0.5" but would really like to get as close to an inch as possible. 

[East Dubzz]

Enhanced area pulled northeast quite a bit.

 

Has me in the Enhanced Risk area a little now... please make it happen.

[jaster220]

Marshall and BC have both gone a solid month with little more than a ground wetting. Getting quite dry. Has to be a narrow area here were D0 conditions exist or soon will if the sunny and dry streak continues much longer. One extreme or the other anymore in this era it seems..

[CentralNebWeather]

For as much rain as I have had, it has sure turned off in my immediate area. Storms have been ongoing almost everyday for a week west and north of here. However, these fizzle out within 15-20 miles of me. Yards are starting to show stress as we really haven’t seen any moisture here for over 2 weeks. Irrigation is in full swing.

[Hawkeye]

The HRRR sure isn't enthusiastic about tonight's rain.  Several recent runs show nothing but a widely scattered line of mostly weak crap passing through the area, with many locations remaining dry.  I hope it's underplaying it.  Best case for most locations around here is probably a 5-10 minute downpour that drops a few tenths.

[St Paul Storm]

None of the models picked up on the supercell potential this early after the morning line went north of the TC. A rogue cell about to smash the metro. Warning out now. Pretty big hail core according to radar.

[St Paul Storm]

Tennis ball size hail being reported in Watertown, MN west of the metro.

[East Dubzz]

The HRRR sure isn't enthusiastic about tonight's rain.  Several recent runs show nothing but a widely scattered line of mostly weak crap passing through the area, with many locations remaining dry.  I hope it's underplaying it.  Best case for most locations around here is probably a 5-10 minute downpour that drops a few tenths.

 

HRRR could very well be right, but I don't put too much stock into it anymore based on some of its performances this summer.

[Andie]

In sharp contrast St. Paul Storm's day, No. Texas will have a high today of 95 heading for a week of 100-102*  with high humidity. 

This is the 2-3 weeks that I dread every year.  Hopefully we won't have a repeat in Sept. 

 

Bring on that early Fall, my friends !!

 

They put a 20% chance of rain in the foercast today.  Guess they just want us to feel better about it......

[St Paul Storm]

Crazy weather day. Our 2nd severe thunderstorm watch of the day just issued until 10pm. The core of the intense storm jumped over me but I had a good 15 min downpour with lightning.

[Iowawx]

Really need heavy rain here tonight. This is my front lawn. This is getting ridiculous. It seems like it just doesn’t want to rain in Cedar Rapids.

[james1976]

Really need heavy rain here tonight. This is my front lawn. This is getting ridiculous. It seems like it just doesn’t want to rain in Cedar Rapids.

It's like that over here too. I haven't mowed in a month.

[East Dubzz]

It's not quite as bad here, but it's getting towards that for sure.

[East Dubzz]

Chance of rain has increased to 80% tonight. That's promising, at least. I'll even just take a couple tenths of an inch at this point. Better than nothing.

[james1976]

Starting to get going in NW IA

[St Paul Storm]

Near full sun again and things ramping up south of St Cloud. MPX sent up a special balloon for this afternoon. Looks like rush hour disaster in the making.

[Iowawx]

Of course this doesn't look good for Cedar Rapids. No severe thunderstrom watch here, and there is nothing on radar now. I am so tired of this. 

[james1976]

I'm in a watch till 11. Starting to pop up to the west

[East Dubzz]

Of course this doesn't look good for Cedar Rapids. No severe thunderstrom watch here, and there is nothing on radar now. I am so tired of this. 

 

To be fair, nobody in the DVN forecast area has a watch as of right now.

[Tom]

4” hail stone reported in Delano, MN! Wowza!

[East Dubzz]

This is the DVN's take on tonight's set-up...

Tonight there are two main scenarios in play. Scenario 1 is that storms develop along the front and form a respectable band that moves into the highway 20 corridor around sunset and slowly weakens as it moves southeast through the area. Such a scenario would give better chances for most areas seeing some rain.

Scenario 2 starts out similar to scenario 1 but storms fall apart much quicker as they enter the highway 20 corridor resulting in dry conditions for parts of the area.

Given the abnormally dry conditions across the area and the moist bias in the models, scenario 2 does have merit.

What may happen is that a respectable line develops ahead of the front and maintains itself through the development of a pool of cold air as it moves into the area. If this occurs then areas generally north of highway 30 would have the better chance of seeing rain before a fairly quick weakening of the line occurs as it moves southeast.

If the above situation does occur then there would be a risk of damaging winds with the storms as they initially move into the area.

[Tom]

Pics of the 4" hail stones...that'll put some dents on your car...

 

[Hawkeye]

There's a nice line of storms over northern Iowa.  However, the models have this line weakening and drying up by the time it reaches CR/IC.  We'll see.

[St Paul Storm]

4” hail stone reported in Delano, MN! Wowza!

My co-worker lives not far from there. She had 3” hail at her house. Siding was shredded, skylights cracked, roof shingles destroyed. That was a crazy storm. It only clipped far western St Paul so I missed the worst of it, thankfully.

[Tom]

My co-worker lives not far from there. She had 3” hail at her house. Siding was shredded, skylights cracked, roof shingles destroyed. That was a crazy storm. It only clipped far western St Paul so I missed the worst of it, thankfully.

That’s impressive. It’s like softballs falling from the sky. Crazy updrafts with that storm cell.

[East Dubzz]

Radar looks good. Hope it holds at least decent form.

[Andie]

I’ve been through a couple of those in Tx and it’s like being attacked by cannonballs. Really terrifying.

The damage is really stunning.

[Iowawx]

The line of storms looks very organized now. No sign of it losing it's strength. It is now south of highway 20, and I expect it here in Cedar Rapds in 30-45 minutes or so. 

 

Severe threat looks like it's pretty much done, but the rain could be heavy. 

[Hawkeye]

Yeah, so far, so good.  It still needs to hold together for one more hour for CR and two hours for IC.  Dubuque is about to get a good downpour.

[East Dubzz]

It’s raining good.. and quite windy. Very nice to see!

[Iowawx]

Yeah, so far, so good.  It still needs to hold together for one more hour for CR and two hours for IC.  Dubuque is about to get a good downpour.

Looks like there is a hail core southeast of Waterloo. You see any sign of this falling apart before it gets here? Looks like it has strengthened in the past hour or so.

 

I can already see the lightning off to the northwest.