9:30 AM update: Showers & thunderstorms have shown signs of rapid formation in the past few minutes. Some areas will likely have lightning, very heavy rain, and possible flooding by morning. The latest data has the cold air advancing fast. I will be talking about this in a few minutes at 10 PM on NBC Action News!
Previous entry below:
Happy Friday Night In The Big Town!
Hey bloggers, can you believe this weather. 3 below zero on Monday, light snow, freezing rain, light snow again, and now record breaking 66 degrees today (69 downtown). It is still 65 degrees at 8 PM! Here is the 8 PM surface map:
The new data is coming out and the NAM blasts us with thunderstorms after midnight. They may start forming at any time but as of 8 PM there isn't a radar echo to be found. I am expecting thunderstorms to start developing as soon as this disturbance rotates around the base of the large scale storm over the 4 corner states. I will be showing this at 10 PM. Below, you can see our Powercast forecast for 7 AM. The latest data has the temperatures dropping faster than I had though they would and it could be near 32 degrees or lower during the morning:
The NAM also shows the cold air just plow in here during the morning and we may be in the 20s by 1 PM. The main disturbance is forecast to track northwest of us which is too bad for snow lovers. I think there may be a band of heavy snow along and north of the vort max path. Snowflakes are likely Saturday afternoon or evening, but any accumulation will be northwest of that storms path. This may be easier to see by morning. Before the chance of snow arrives there will likely be a heavy band of rain and thunderstorms. Here is where the LRC comes into play as we are certain that a large area of rain and thunderstorms will form tonight and the cold front will be moving through this band of rain around 4 to 6 AM. This has happened in many of our precipitation events since this pattern set up in October and we are expecting this mesoscale feature to show up again tonight.
There may be some severe weather tonight but likely with just the first few thunderstorms that develop as this should line out and grow into a rain with embedded thunderstorm event after midnight.
We will be tracking these developments on NBC Action News at 10 PM and then again in the morning.
Gary