It’s insane really, how just a day and a half ago we were looking at a Palm Sunday redux, but all it took to completely change that solution is a very slight flattening of the jet exit region (the high end scenarios displayed the jet streak curving northeast which put the exit region further north).
This flattening caused the surface low to propagate further south and therefore caused the area of maximum forcing further south.
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Had the jet streak kept its orientation that models over a day ago have shown, (left image) the MCS would’ve stayed far more north and allowed for an unaltered warm sector to set in place as far north as Chicago. And yes, a Palm Sunday redux had a legitimate 50/50 shot at verifying, as at one point every cam model displayed long track, extremely intense helicity streaks with some of them spanning three states across.
This really could’ve been an historic and certainly a catastrophic event. Goes to show that even the slightest changes Synoptically can completely change your scenario. Close call honestly with this one, it could’ve been really bad.