WKU Meteorology

Sorry for the break in coverage on the blog. However I will be forecasting for you till the close of the semester.

1. Today we have a Stationary front parked over the Ohio river and a cold front with low pressure over the central plains. This will transport warm and moist air into the region. The frontal boundary may also serve to trigger some scattered storms primarily to our north. A sufficient amount of instability will be present today, marked by steep low level lapse rates ( change in temperature with height) and CAPE values of 1500-2500 J/KG. This may promote a threat for damaging winds and large hail with any storm. Highs will be in the 80’s today with mostly sunny skies. Storm chances are only around 30%.

2. Sunday and Monday the stationary boundary to our north lifts a little further north as a warm front and the cold front stays over the plains. This allows ridging to continue to build over our region. This results in sinking air at the surface preventing convection development and keeping any storm chance isolated (15%) at best with mostly sunny skies. Though once again  instability will be sufficient for any isolated storm to become severe with similar threats to today. lows will be in the lower 60’s with highs in the low to mid 80’s. Winds through Tuesday should be out of the south and not to gusty.

3. Tuesday the cold frontal boundary approaches which is the trigger needed to increase storm chances to likely. Also shear will increase as well giving us our best chance of severe weather for the forecast  period. Though if storms arrive to early then instability will lack due to cloud cover. Lows will be in the lower 60’s with highs in the 70’s.

GAINES

Bowling Green, along with much of the Mid South, continues to experience abnormally dry conditions.  Since the first of the year, Bowling Green is experiencing a rainfall deficit of 3.42 inches, 2.44 of that deficit being since the first of March.  Some much needed rain is on the way for this evening and into the early morning hours of tomorrow as well.  This rain is in association with a cold front and a storm system tracking across The Great Lakes with an additional low centered over northeast Texas.  Over the next 24 hours the front will track across The Mid South bringing light to moderate rain to much of the area.  Some thunderstorm activity can be expected, but conditions are not favorable for severe weather.  The SPC has a 5% risk delineated for much of the Contiguous United States east of The Mississippi River as well as the Southern Plains.

An overall quiet weather pattern has been in place for the past few days, with the jet stream over the northern tier of states in the Contiguous United States.  In general this pattern reflects what is normally seen sometime around mid to late May as opposed to mid April.  As today progresses, The GFS and the NAM want to progress a trough across The Plains, which could spell severe weather for The Red River Valley all the way north and eastward into southern Iowa including much of Oklahoma, a good portion of eastern Kansas, and a good portion of western Missouri.  A standard Slight Risk is in place for these areas, from the SPC.  As the week comes to a close, activity from this afternoon in The Plains along with the trough will increase rain chances for The Mid South.  Rain chances are on the increase for Friday and into Saturday.  No severe weather is expected with this activity, however, as the conditions are nowhere near favorable for such activity.  This rain will, however, be a welcome sight as much of The Mid South is running abnormally dry.

On this date fourteen years ago, April 16, 1998, the city of Bowling Green was devastated by a very potent supercell thunderstorm that produced baseball-size hail.  The storm developed in Logan County, and very quickly produced a tornado that would track across southern Warren County, clip the northern tip of Allen County, cross Barren River Lake, and track the entire width of Barren County before dissipating.  The tornado produced F3 damage at its peak intensity.  The long track supercell then produced a brief F2 tornado in Metcalffe County, produced another F3 tornado that raked across northern Adair County, and then produced another brief F2 tornado at the end of the track of the F3 in Adair County.

The F3 tornado in Warren County hit rural areas of the county, thus allowing it to be mostly overshadowed by the tremendous hail damage in the city of Bowling Green, which experienced a direct impact from the hail core of this very intense supercell.

On that same day, Nashville’s central business district was directly impacted by an F3 wedge tornado as well.  This outbreak of tornadoes came only a week after an outbreak of tornadoes impacted The Deep South, with suburbs of Birmingham, AL being hit by an F5 tornado.  On Apirl 16, 1998, an F5 tornado occurred near Lawrenceburg, TN.  It is known as “The Forgotten F5” because it was widely overlooked due to the impacts on Nashville as well as Bowling Green.

Today’s weather setup does not look to be as active as fourteen years ago.  The decaying remnants of a very expansive squall line in association with a rather potent low pressure system that is tracking across the northern Great Lakes moved through the region this morning widely stabilizing the environment.  The cold front should pass through the region by late afternoon into the early evening.  While the majority of convective activity looks to occur in far eastern Ohio, much of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York with a small region of favorable conditions in the southern tip of Texas, which is currently verifying (the northern region should verify later today) as delineated by The SPC, some minor convective activity could be triggered in The Mid South and The Ohio Valley today by the passing cold front.

The weather across Bowling Green this week has been quite tranquil with high pressure in place.  The big story has been the change in temperatures with lows in the 30s and highs in the upper 50s to lower 60s.  Monday of this week the the high was 74 degrees and last week (April 2nd) was 85 degrees.  That is a 11 degree difference in high temperature in a week.  The low temperature was even more drastic with a low of 63 degrees last Monday and this Monday low of 39 degrees.  This is a 24 degree drop in temperature aided by radiational cooling with strong high pressure in place and northwest flow.  As the high pressure moves to the east the area will experience warm up for the weekend with return flow around the high pressure. High temperatures will get back into the upper 70s to lower 80s and low temperatures in the lower 60s.

By: Dustin Jordan

Highlights:

-Chance of precipitation Thursday

-Much cooler temperatures expected Friday and Saturday morning

-Highs returning to average

Skies will be mostly cloudy to overcast for the duration of the night and morning as light to moderate showers continue to develop on radar across the western portion of Kentucky.   Light showers are not out of the question for us as well for the duration of the day on Thursday as the closed low pressure system that has been located across the plains quickly traverses eastward and is once again re-absorbed into the general flow, but any precipitation we receive should accumulate to less than a tenth of an inch.    Highs look to be much cooler than as of late only reaching the mid 60’s Thursday under the influence of the cold core 500mb low pressure system and overcast skies, with lows in the mid 50’s Thursday morning and falling to the upper 40’s around the midnight hour.  Things get really interesting during the overnight hours Friday.  As the closed low pressure system is absorbed within a trough swinging through the eastern half of the United States, it starts to deepen and strengthen.  As this occurs, our placement in relation to the trough will allow cold air from Canada to pool into the Kentucky region as well as the eastern half of the United States.

500mb projected heights and winds for Friday at 12Z. This setup will send cold air from Canada down south into our region

Temperatures don’t look to reach the freezing mark, but frost will still be a likely occurrence under the presence of clear skies with light winds and the temperature approaching the dew point.  The low Friday morning looks to be a chilly start to the day in the mid 30’s and clear skies for the duration of the day, but temperatures will rebound back into the mid 60’s for the high.  Saturday looks to bring little change from Friday with highs still in the mid 60’s and lows in the upper 30’s.  Frost is also a possibility Saturday morning with skies continuing to be clear, light wind speeds, and the temperature once again approaching the dew point.  The low Sunday morning should be much warmer because the upper level trough is forecasted to have sufficiently traversed to the east away from Kentucky.   Lows look to be in the upper 40’s, with highs approaching the upper 60’s mark Sunday.

An upper level ridge will continue to keep skies partly clear through the early part of the week as an amplified neutrally tilted trough continues to slide its way eastward across the United States.  As this trough moves eastward, a surface low pressure will quickly deepen and help temperatures continue to be above normal and closer to summer time average temperatures.

Projected location of surface low pressure system

Strong warm air advections around this low will bring temperatures to the upper 80’s Monday while lows Monday morning will remain around the low 60’s.  Tuesday looks to be similar to Monday with high’s in the upper 80’s and lows in the mid 60’s.  Given that no convective inhibition is forecasted to cover the area, air mass thunderstorms cannot be ruled out through the duration of the afternoon Monday and Tuesday.  Tuesday afternoon introduces more difficulty to the forecast as a closed low pressure system makes its way across Kentucky.  All forecast models suggest a band of showers developing moving from southwest to northeast across the region beginning Tuesday night and these showers look to persist into the day early  Wednesday .

ECMFW forecast for April 3rd at 10:00pm. Shows 90% Relative Humidity over our region. Courtesy Weather Underground

NAM projected Composite Reflectivity. The band of showers is also suggested in this model run

Temperatures Wednesday will be slightly lower under mostly cloudy skies in the upper 70’s, while lows will continue to be in the lower 60’s to upper 50’s.  As Thursday approaches, models differ on precipitation chances as the upper level remains over the area.  Updates to forecast will come Thursday.

As all of you have noticed spring is here ,and the first full week of spring brings the continuous warmer temperatures. Here in Bowling Green, we are still roughly 5+ degrees above the normal and should continue on that track for the remainder of the week.

Below is a current map of temperatures across the nation. An abundance of warmth is dominating the SE of the country today.

The rain chance for Monday and Tuesday is at a minimum while the second half of the week remains open for isolated showers.

Temperatures for Tuesday are looking to be a bit higher than today, with highs around 80

Highlights
• Pattern change for the rest of the week
• Cooler temperatures and chances of precipitation through the weekend

Forecast
Deep upper level trough that has been producing heavy rain and severe weather in TX through the week, will cut-off and slowly drift across our region through the weekend. With enhanced lift and a cool core aloft will allow for showers and thunderstorms to develop starting Thursday. A cool front will then proceed through early Friday morning bringing temperatures down to more seasonable. QPF amounts vary, but not expecting near the intensity experience across the southern plains. Bottom line is temperatures will top off near 79 with heavy cloud cover and thundershowers Thursday with a low around 60 as the cold front approaches. Temperatures will continue to fall with higher precip chances Fri and a high and low of 70/55. Rain should end by Sunday with partly cloudy skies and a high near 70.

Highlights
Persistance forecast with high temperatures in the low 80’s and low’s around 60.
Forecast
As the upper level ridge and respondant low level southerly flow continue to amplify, our sensible weather will remain much of the same through Wed. All of the upper level dynamics are cofined to the highly dug trough over the central plains that will most likely cut-off and effect our weather for later this weekend. The only chance of precip looks to be Wed, and this will be highly dependent on how much instability is advected into our region that day. For now the period looks to be mostly dry.