Severe WX April 1-2 (overnight) Severe Weather Event

[JPWX]

Just now catching up this morning. The Level 3 Enhanced should be expanded back more into North MS especially giving this potential for isolated supercells that SPC clearly hints at towards the bottom.
"Along the southern extent of the dryline/Pacific front, subtle
height falls may support only isolated storm development. Still a
couple storms appear likely by early to mid afternoon across parts
of northeast TX, southern AR and northern LA. Strong mid-level flow,
robust moisture (dewpoints near 70 F), and large hodographs will
likely support supercells with all hazards. These storms should
persist into parts of the mid and lower MS valley overnight with a
continued severe risk."

 

[US_Highway15]

Dang!

 

[UpperLevelLOL]

Well that goes right over my house, lovely

 

[DanLarsen34]

I see the enhanced risk probabilities finally got pulled down into the OKC metro. That seems warranted given that some of the convective allowing models have shown at least 1-2 cells going in central Oklahoma this evening.

 

[Bulkshear]

That’s quite the sounding being in a marginal risk for tomorrow….

 

[lake.effect]

Woke up fully expecting a MOD for today and/or tomorrow.
Very surprised the SPC is holding back so much. Potential is off the charts.

I think events like this highlight the flaws in the SPC forecasting methodology, which currently does not take into account conditional events (or better said, events that have high conditionality).

The 5-tier risk system is easy to follow, but suffers from a lack of precision or clarity in these kinds of events. Sometimes it seems like the SPC just adjusts the risk level based on "averaging" the 2 possible outcomes (outbreak vs nothing) rather than capturing the true potential of the event and the uncertainty.

Not sure what the solution is though...SPC forecasts have to balance a lot factors (risk level, conditionality, public awareness, etc). Scientists tend to overcomplicate things, so I wouldn't trust the SPC to incorporate conditionality into forecasts without adding more confusion.

 

[joshoctober16]

While there is a decent amount of CINH in that sounding, I did notice the analog was from Guthrie, OK at 2z the night of 5/3/99.

major yikes , went from mid to now good.

only thing is for some reason its not PDS TOR?
i checked everything (except for 0-1 km LR because it wont show it...) and it should be PDS TOR (unless its exactly the 0-1 km LR that you cant see)

 

[US_Highway15]

I think events like this highlight the flaws in the SPC forecasting methodology, which currently does not take into account conditional events (or better said, events that have high conditionality).

That's a very bold take considering we legit had a 10% hatched last month for Illinois for "conditional reasons."

Storm Prediction Center Mar 19, 2025 1300 UTC Day 1 Convective Outlook

Severe weather, tornado, thunderstorm, fire weather, storm report, tornado watch, severe thunderstorm watch, mesoscale discussion, convective outlook products from the Storm Prediction Center.

www.spc.noaa.gov

See March 19th 2025 SPC's Day 1 Outlook:

"The primary uncertainty centers of the degree of
low-level moistening/destabilization, and the current forecast
represents a conditional/reasonable worst case scenario."

SPC outlooks are made based off *confidence* and should be made based off that, while also taking into account the chances of a "worst-case scenario."

 

[172556]

View attachment 38115
while the LFC is a bit high and the 3CAPE is a bit low , and the storm slinky is a bit messed up (all has to do with the LFC) its overall a pretty extreme sounding , could see a violent tornado out of this.

Yikes, check out the analog - 5/3/99

 

[ColdFront]

Woke up fully expecting a MOD for today and/or tomorrow.
Very surprised the SPC is holding back so much. Potential is off the charts.

I’m not sure why everyone was shocked to not see a Moderate. SPC has been hammering the caveats and question marks on this event in their outlooks for days now. It does no good to have maxed out parameters like tomorrow if you just have a big congealed linear system come through. If there are no discrete cells to take advantage of it, it craters the ceiling of the event. Storm mode if it doesn’t cooperate and isn’t a sure thing can lower the floor.

Like you said, there’s potential, but the floor of this set up is extremely low. This isn’t like 3/14 or 3/15 where the ceiling was extremely high and the floor was still high.

 

[lake.effect]

That's a very bold take considering we legit had a 10% hatched last month for Illinois for "conditional reasons."

Storm Prediction Center Mar 19, 2025 1300 UTC Day 1 Convective Outlook

Severe weather, tornado, thunderstorm, fire weather, storm report, tornado watch, severe thunderstorm watch, mesoscale discussion, convective outlook products from the Storm Prediction Center.

www.spc.noaa.gov

See March 19th 2025 SPC's Day 1 Outlook:

"The primary uncertainty centers of the degree of
low-level moistening/destabilization, and the current forecast
represents a conditional/reasonable worst case scenario."

It's a bit more nuanced than that...

It's one thing to include the conditionality in the discussion, it's another thing to integrate it into the risk level itself. Most non-mets aren't reading SPC discussions. But the general public is often aware of the overall risk level. Currently, risk levels do not explicitly take conditionality into account. There's not a clear method (at least a public one) the SPC uses to integrate conditionality into the overall risk level.

 

[cincywx]

Here's the full composite run for tomorrow and Wednesday till the late evening:

View attachment 38072

This, verbatim, would easily be the most significant risk for the cincinnati area since 3/2/2012. Thankfully, the 06z and 12z HRRR runs backed off quite a bit in this neck of the woods, and runs prior to last night's 0z HRRR were also fairly linear. Still a nasty environment for any isolated storm that does form, however.

 

[Kds86z]

PI’m not sure why everyone was shocked to not see a Moderate. SPC has been hammering the caveats and question marks on this event in their outlooks for days now. It does no good to have maxed out parameters like tomorrow if you just have a big congealed linear system come through. If there are no discrete cells to take advantage of it, it craters the ceiling of the event. Storm mode if it doesn’t cooperate and isn’t a sure thing can lower the floor.

Like you said, there’s potential, but the floor of this set up is extremely low. This isn’t like 3/14 or 3/15 where the ceiling was extremely high and the floor was still high.

 

[US_Highway15]

It's a bit more nuanced than that...

It's one thing to include the conditionality in the discussion, it's another thing to integrate it into the risk level itself. Most non-mets aren't reading SPC discussions. But the general public is often aware of the overall risk level. Currently, risk levels do not explicitly take conditionality into account. There's not a clear method (at least a public one) the SPC uses to integrate conditionality into the overall risk level.

You're right, most of the non-mets/public do not read the SPC discussions. They usually take into account what their local TV meteorlogists, or big time channels (TWC, FOX Weather) say about the threat. It's their job to describe it for the public to understand, and that includes taking into the conditional "worst-case scenario."

I personally think what the SPC's doing is just fine, I mean they're the best of the best after all. They're not going to be perfect, just like none of us are perfect.

 

[lake.effect]

You're right, most of the non-mets/public do not read the SPC discussions. They usually take into account what their local TV meteorlogists, or big time channels (TWC, FOX Weather) say about the threat. It's their job to describe it for the public to understand, and that includes taking into the conditional "worst-case scenario."

I personally think what the SPC's doing is just fine, I mean they're the best of the best after all. They're not going to be perfect, just like none of us are perfect.

imo the SPC should cater their forecasts exclusively to amateur mets who want to see red and pink on convective outlook maps

/s

 

[US_Highway15]

imo the SPC should cater their forecasts exclusively to amateur mets who want to see red and pink on convective outlook maps

/s

Yeah, if that was the case, the weather enterprise would be screwed lol

EXTREME RISK IN EFFECT FOR POTENTIAL EF6 TORNADOES!!!!!!!!!

 

[cg9450]

Yeah, if that was the case, the weather enterprise would be screwed lol

EXTREME RISK IN EFFECT FOR POTENTIAL EF6 TORNADOES!!!!!!!!!

Ted Fujita spinning in his grave

 

[Kds86z]

 

[rushdude]

Ok, why is Fort Worth in the 5% TOR risk?
I wasn't planning on cleaning my bathtub until Thursday but fine

 

[Clancy]

View attachment 38126

Surprised to not see the words "MAJOR OUTBREAK POTENTIAL" somewhere in that post.