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As I mentioned all night, we are going to see alot of rain. The above program is BUFKIT and it shows the 00Z NAM. Timestamp goes right to left, but that really does not matter... because it is all rain. This shows 3.5-4" of rain for Jonesboro. I think that is very reasonable based on the setup.

In addition to the flooding threat, we will also run the risk of strong storms. I'm not "as" sold on severe storms as I was yesterday, but we'll have to be watchful. The below graphic is for Friday evening and shows the EHI:
EHI is the Energy Helicity Index and is a number that is derived by the instability available (CAPE) and the spin or helicity present. (CAPE*Helicity/160000) This combination gives us an index to measure the tornado threat. As you can see, the greater threat is in Missouri, even though their instability is not as great... they have more "spin".

Until I see something different, I'm still thinking that flash flooding will be our greatest threat. Don't get me wrong, we'll still have watches and warnings, but when it is all over... flooding may be the bigger problem.

I'll send some tweets with updates tomorrow. I'm WAY sleepy... so excuse typos.

Ryan

After seeing the video we aired on KAIT last night, the NWS concludes that the video DOES show a tornado and that the damage was from a weak tornado. They had a tornado warning in effect for Mississippi County when the tornado came through, so props to the NWS!

Sometimes video is the exact thing needed to confirm a tornado when there is not much damage...

If you missed the video, click on the title of the blog and scroll down...

Ryan

Let me first say that I support the decision of the National Weather Service 100%. They ruled the damage in Mississippi County as straight-line wind damage and there is a good chance that it WAS straight-line wind damage, BUT maybe that damage was not caused by what I see in the above video. If this is a tornado, it appears to be over the Big Lake area and there is really not much for it to damage in that part of the county. If you look close, you can see some trees getting knocked around and some water being kicked up... but there are not any homes, cars, etc in the path. Yes, it is possible to have damage from straight-line winds... and have a tornado nearby.

In my opinion, this is a tornado. It's a weak tornado, but a tornado. The NWS did a great job issuing the warning on this storm, because the radar signatures were not overly impressive. I believe there was one scan that showed the rotation. I showed that radar image in an earlier blog post.

So, what do you think? Is it a tornado? Comment in the comments section...

Ryan

Here's the Pubic Information Statement from the NWS:

Click Here.

I took Friday off work to go to Nashville to cheer for my family in the Music City Marathon and 1/2. While away (as you know) there were two rounds of severe weather. I've spent the evening looking over data and pictures to find out what happened. Friday's most impressive storm started around Alicia and moved up toward Hoxie. There were also some reports of a tornado near Cash which was associated with the same storm. On radar, the most impressive data was in Hoxie, so that's the radar capture above with two damage photos. I overlayed the velocity data (winds) from 6:16 PM on Friday. If you notice, there is a decent "couplet" that had just moved through the Hoxie area. A "couplet" is an indication of winds going in opposite directions really close to each other and "could" indicate a tornado. I'm not sure if the NWS has surveyed the damage up there, but it sure looked impressive on radar... Here's a loop of the storm's velocity. Look for the couplet near Hoxie and the big puff of wind (green) near Bono:
Now, let's move on to the storm near Manila, AR. Instead of looking impressive on radar... it had pictures! In fact, if it did not have pictures to go along with it.. I would have doubted that it existed! Here's the radar image at 1:56 PM on Saturday:
I have marked the "couplet" again. Remember, green colors show "inbound" winds and red shows "outbound" winds. For ONE scan, I could see something. It was south of Manila and moved up toward Big Lake... just like the spotter told us! While it did not look too dangerous on radar, the pictures looked a little scary. Click the above image to enlarge and you can see the tornado from two vantage points. One from Manila and one from Dell.

If you want to see more pictures from viewers OR if you want to upload your own video or pics... Go to THE LOOP by clicking here.

Have a good week. It could get active again later in the week...

Ryan

This Saturday there is a HUGE Marathon and Half Marathon in Nashville, TN. Many people in Region 8 are travelling there to run in or specate the Music City Marathon and Half Marathon. My wife, sister-in-law, father-in-law, & bother-in-law are all running in it. ALSO, meteorologist Sarah Tipton will be running it!

Here's the problem! The Storm Prediction Center has Nashville in a risk zone for severe weather! I asked the MCM officials on Twitter about their rain plan and their severe weather plan and this was their response:

@ryanvaughan #CMM will go on rain or shine! In regards to lightening, we always err on the safe side and have a contingency plan in place!

I'm interested to see what happens. Can you imagine 30,000 people running in severe weather? NOGOOD!Hopefully it stays day! Follow the Nashville WX Blog on my list of links for continuing coverage of Nashville's weather.

Ryan

Despite a few signs pointing to a severe weather outbreak in Region 8 and lots of chatter in the weather community, I'm not sold on a major problem with severe weather this weekend in OUR viewing area. YES, we will have watches and possibly some warnings, but I'm not sold on seeing widespread damage. I may be eating those words this weekend, but as of right now... I think the greater risk is South and East on Saturday. Things are just not matching up in my opinion. The above image is the 00Z NAM model in BUFKIT. The timestamp goes from right to left. I labeled the line that shows our greatest instability occurs Friday night. However, our best vertical motion in the atmosphere holds off until Saturday. This alone tells me that the greatest threat may just be heavy rain.

Let's contrast the above image for one that does look more severe. This is Tupelo, MS... 00Z NAM:
Notice, the best chance of "rising motion" in the air is lined up well with the greatest instability. CAPE is over 1000 (unlike us) and the timing is a little more in line.

I'm not saying we will not see thunderstorms. WE WILL. I'm just not expecting a big tornado outbreak in the Jonesboro area. If I lived in the Tupelo, MS area, I'd be much more concerned!!! So, it will be close and needs watching. Things can shift FAST.

Areas in Eastern , AR stand the best chance of seeing severe weather this weekend in Region 8. Hopefully, I don't pay for these comments on Saturday!

Stay tuned, things can change fast.
Ryan

We have a stormy pattern setting up across Region 8. One thing that looks certain is RAIN... and possibly a lot of it. The above image shows the total accumulation as indicated by the 12Z NAM theough the next 84 hours. Yes, that is showing 3" of rain in parts of Region 8. That's a lot of rain and hopefully it does not all come at once, but we need the rain and that's ok. So, will we see severe weather?

I'm still not sold on an "outbreak" of severe weather. Sure, we may have watches and warnings, but I'm not so sure about widespread problems in Region 8. The main reason is timing. VERY close call... Storms will be much stronger East of the Mississippi River. I believe the "most" unstable part of the storm will occur on Saturday morning at daybreak. It's hard to have significant severe storms that early in the day. It can happen, but it's not too common.

We'll keep a close watch on the storm system and will continue to keep you posted. Meteorologist Justin Logan will be here through the weekend tracking the storms. I'll be in Nashville, TN cheering on my wife, her family, and meteorologist Sarah Tipton in the Music City Marathon and Half Marathon. I know we have a lot of local people in the race. Be aware that it is going to be stormy there, too! The officials at the MCM say they have a plan in the event of severe weather.

Ryan

The above image was taken this evening from the NWS Amarillo Doppler radar. It is "unsmoothed", somewhat pixelated, data that would be closest to "raw" data from the radar. Meteorologically speaking, it is the best way to view a storm. HOWEVER, in the world of "curves", we tend to "smooth" the data for television. Continue reading...
We usually use the first level of smoothing at KAIT with StormTRACK Doppler 8 (above image). Notice it still maintains some of it's detail and is not quite as "curved" or "rounded off" as the image below....
The image above is "highly" smoothed on our radar system. Everything is curved off and there is NO pixelation.

So, what are the pros and cons. Well, the smoothed data to many people looks better. However, you lose a some detail when you smooth the data. Here at KAIT we will smooth the data "a little" on air usually, but keep it unsmoothed behind the scenes.

Recently the NWS underwent some upgrades to make radar data available in a higher resolution. Some stations use it, some don't. Most of the stations that do not do use it are tied to some bandwidth limitations. It takes a lot of bandwidth! Anywho, with the advancement of Super Resolution data, I'm considering a move to "no smoothing" during severe weather events to gain detail of the storms. It's not as "TV Friendly", but it is much better to see what is occuring.
For fun, click on the 1st image and 3rd image to enlarge and compare. Can you see the detail that you miss?

Thoughts?

If you REALLY want to read up on this a little more, read this discussion board.

Kimberly Hamm has better eyes than me, but she saw the shuttle! That's the correct angle and correct look of the shuttle as it passed over Arkanaas at Mach 14! Click the picture to enlarge. Good job capturing it Kimberly!

Some of you also heard the Sonic Boom. KATV meteorologist Todd Yakoubian caught it on video. Check his blog to watch it: http://www.katv.com/blogs/wx/

I missed everything!
Ryan

I was having a discussion with someone yesterday about Dewpoints. Some spell it Dewpoint, some spell it Dew Point. I prefer one word, but that's not up for discussion today... I'm wondering if you think the dewpoint is important. Not only do I think the dewpoint is important, I think it is more important than the long-talked about "Relative Humidity".

The Relative Humidity (by definition) is relative to the temperature. It's actually pretty worthless to the viewer on a summer afternoon to measure how "muggy" it is by looking at that number alone. Dewpoints are not relative to the temperature, so they can stand alone in showing how "muggy" it is across an area. Anything over 60° on the dewpoint can be "felt" on a summer afternoon. 70°+ dewpoints are REALLY muggy.

Think back to HIGH NOON on the 4th of July last year. What were you doing? Was it muggy? What would you say the Relative Humidity was at Noon? Would you believe it was 53%? Most would say higher...The dewpoint was 69°. Makes more sense, right?

Now, let's look at the dewpoint in reference to storms and rainfall. We'll start by looking at the dewpoint this week in the above graph. Each line is a model interpretation of the dewpoint. Green line/dots represent the NWS forecast. As the dewpoint ramps up, the rain chances and mugginess goes up. Good sign of the atmosphere changing and shows "the juice" that is available for developing storms! Good thing to WATCH. Good thing to TRACK. It tells us and the viewers a lot!

So, here's my question. Is the dewpoint relevant to you and your life? Should I show it on-air? Should it never be shown because it's too "sciencey" and "geeky"? There are NO wrong answers. I'd love to hear your feedback! I plan to start a poll on the right side of the blog as well.

Thanks!
Ryan

There are a lot of "IFs", but IF NASA takes the second landing opportunity after waiving the first and IF the clouds are all gone and IF we are just close enough... we may see or hear the shuttle fly over the state!

This is BIG because the shuttle program is about to retire and there is a high chance that we will never have the shuttle deorbit over Arkansas again. SOOO... watch my Twitter feed above for updates in the morning and we will see what happens! The closer you are to the Searcy area, the better chance you have to see the shuttle and hear the double sonic boom! 7:50 AM is a rough estimate... if they choose the second attempt, I will be outside from 7:30 AM to 8:00. Hopefully somewhere quiet.

Ryan

The Space Shuttle Discovery is set to land Monday morning (weather pending... keep reading). IF NASA chooses to take the FIRST landing approach, the shuttle will fly over parts of Region 8. According to the map released from NASA, it will fly almost directly over Poplar Bluff, Kennett, and Blytheville. I'm still unsure if we'll be able to see it from other parts of Region 8, but I'm pretty confident that if you are in Paragould, Jonesboro, and other surrounding areas... you will be able to see it by looking from North to East as it goes by... It will look like a streak in the sky and will possibly have a double sonic boom. (Sweet!)

The sun rises at 6:25 AM Monday morning and we should start looking for the shuttle after 7:15 AM. At some point between 7:15AM and 7:45 AM, we should see something. It would probably be around 7:30 AM if I'm reading this correctly...

Here's the BAD NEWS... There is a good chance of rain at Cape Canaveral and this landing approach may not be taken...

IF they choose the second landing approach, the path will be farther south and will go over Little Rock and many of us will not be able to see it... If neither path is chosen and the landing is delayed a day or two, NASA will release new maps and times. I'll keep you posted. Here's a map of the second approach:

Let's hope we see and/or hear something!
Ryan

The above image shows the temperature "anomalies" across the world today. In other words, WHO is seeing unusually warm or cold weather. The yellow/orange colors show the areas warmer than average and the blues/purples show the colder than average areas.

You can clearly see the large area of blues over Eastern Asia right now! It stands out like a sore thumb! Not only has it been cold there, but it has been snowy! Read this article for more info on the wild weather in China.

So, how does that affect Region 8? Well, that's what I'm looking into... Rest assure we will not see snow from a storm in China! That would be a goofy forecast, BUT does it point to a more active and progressive pattern in the coming weeks???? I'll continue to investigate... LOL

Ryan

Here's the 6Z GFS (Midnight'ish Model Run) and it shows a big ball of nothing! Farmers are really wanting some dry weather and it appears they are going to get it! Also, we never hit 80° at the official spot in Jonesboro! While we have gradual warming in store for Region 8, I still think we will not see 80s over the next 7 days. Remember, the timestamp on this program (BUFKIT) goes from right to left...

FYI- Click the title of the blog above to read blog posts that you have missed!
Enjoy everything about Nothing!
Ryan

Mammatus clouds are some of the coolest clouds! To read more about them click here, but I just wanted to share this picture that I snapped this evening at KAIT. Trey Stafford shot me a text message to run outside and when I came out... I found this! Tonight at 10:00... I'm showing a timelapse video!

Ryan

Well, the greatest amount of damage today came from the Marmaduke area. Here's a screen capture of the radar when the storm came through. I won't rule out that it was a VERY weak tornado, but I would bet on straight line winds.

The above image is the velocity data from the storm and there is some "broad" rotation. I can see some inflow on the East side of town (where the damage was located) and I can see some winds coming from the NW on the west side of town. Sure, that is rotation... but a lot of storms rotate. It's not "tight" rotation.

OK.. I still think 95% of Easter will be beautiful, warm, and nice... BUT there is some data suggesting that we will see an isolated storm or two. While the chance is low and most will stay dry... anything that does form may be a little strong. Keep your outdoor plans, but be aware.

Ryan