Friday's Severe Storms
This Friday marks our next chance for severe weather for the natural state. Wednesday turned out to be a little more calm then expected. With that being said, we still experienced several tornado warnings, and significant damage in areas across the region. Friday looks like it could be much of the same. Just remember, this is Wednesday night, and data will change tomorrow. We may have a few tweaks to the forecast come Friday. This blog is really just to give you some in-sight to why Friday is setting up to be another severe event. To help explain this all to you, we are breaking it down in a few bullet points.
- Storms look to arrive Friday evening, looks like late Friday, or early Saturday morning (after midnight probably).
- For now, it looks like western, and portions of north central, Arkansas will have the "better" chances for severe weather. That being said, southern, Arkansas still could see a few severe storms.
- All modes of severe weather appear possible: damaging winds, hail, and a few tornadoes are in the realm of possibility.
- These storms could be slow movers, this is not good for us. After receiving heavy rainfall already, flash flooding will become an issue. This could also delay the times when storms are expected to hit your town or city.
- Some of the components of this forecast are still quite muddy, we will know much more tomorrow night, and especially on Friday. Here are the basics, and what we know right now.
Let's dig into some models, and other graphics to help paint this picture. First, we'll look at the SPC (Storm Prediction Center) outlook for Friday. This graphic is valid for (4/26/17) at 10:00 PM posted here Wednesday night. Looking over the outlook, you can see the "enhanced" risk area stretching from west central, Arkansas all the way up to the northeast portions of the state. A "slight" risk area does exist for portions of south central, Arkansas. Once again, southern Arkansas could see a few storms from this, but should miss out on the severe event. The SPC outlooks change a lot, so be aware that this can, and probably will change before Friday.
So let's talk some weather, and get down to the parameters for Friday. First, we will look at the supercell parameters, this is one of our favorite model outputs. It simply paints a picture for ingredients that support supercell development. It's fairly easy to see the supercell potential for Friday, mainly over portions of western, and northern, Arkansas.
We also like to look at the significant tornado parameters when making a forecast. Now, this is not here to freak anyone out. However, it is something we have to be mindful of. The profile for this setup does support tornadoes, and this is something we will monitor extremely close.
Lastly, we will check out the CAPE, or instability values for this setup. As you can see, there is no lack of energy when it comes to this Friday. Some areas are exceeding 3,300 J/kg. For those of you who don't know, CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy) is the fuel needed for thunderstorm development. We have an entire post developed to CAPE on our Facebook page which goes much more in-depth.
As with any storm system, there will be flaws in the forecast. Timing, strength, and possible location changes can occur. Hopefully you enjoyed this detailed look at what Friday night has in store for us. Remember, this looks to be a late night event, so have your weather radios ready! If you don't have a weather radio, we plead with you to have some kind of warning system. We will have any updates, and outlooks, posted on our Facebook page for this Friday nights storms.
God Bless!
-AW Team
