The visible satellite picture above shows the approaching cold front as indicated by the blue line stretching from Lake Ontario southwestward all the way down to the western Gulf of Mexico. I also drew a red circle out in the Atlantic Ocean showing some early morning thunderstorms popping over the warm waters of the gulf stream which is simply just an interesting view. And then the brown circle over the Lakes region shows the upper air low which is SLOWLY grinding ENE over the next couple of days. When you really look over PA, you'll see just a few breaks in the overcast which makes today's forecast that much more difficult. Yesterday, the air was really primed for a storm, but the heavy weather became established just to our NE. If those breaks allow heating by the strong June sun of our soupy air mass here at the surface AND the front helps create some dynamic lift, we should see some drenching thunderstorms this afternoon. Below is the SPC assessment of the situation.
Tomorrow, the severe threat will be to our east; however we could see some showers and thundershowers as the upper level low and its associated cold air will create steep lapse rates and allow for the daytime heating to destabilize the atmosphere and voila, a shower or t-shower is spawned. Here is the model output of likelihood of showers tomorrow. The NAM is giving us a 1 in 4 shot to have showers tomorrow, but not anything like what Thursday afternoon may offer for the Harrisburg area.
The front will pass east of PA by Saturday and lower dew points will invade PA by Saturday morning. Below is the forecast surface map for Saturday and the 2nd graphic shows the probable dew points by Saturday morning. How do you spell relief?
And the likely dew points:
Note that the high moving in is not that strong, so relief will be short lived as that high then becomes a chameleon becoming a Bermuda high by early next week which should pump our temps back to near 90F with higher dew points once again. Ugh! Remember I mentioned that the front went all the way to the Gulf. Below is a recent visible satellite pic of the Gulf. Note the thunderstorms at the tail end of the front. This area must be watched for tropical storm development. Still looking for Arlene!
In closing, this front does have quite a bit of history as it has progressed east producing severe weather (over 70 tornadoes since Sunday) and last night wreaked havoc in the Louisville, KY region. If you were planning to play Churchill Downs today; fu-ged-'bout-it! The strong winds displaced several horses from the damaged barns at Churchill Downs. These severe storms moved through KY yesterday which included a cell which moved through Louisville at around 10:30 pm. As a result of that storm, damage occurred at the CD Racetrack. 9 of the track's 48 barns were damaged, and ~200 horses were displaced as a result of the damage. The NWS has yet to determine whether the damage was caused by a small tornado or a straight line wind gusts. The famous twin spires were not damaged by the storm! Remember just a couple of years ago (August 2009), there was incredible flash flooding which occurred due to heavy thunderstorms as well.
Have a good Thursday!
Smitty
AA: Storms Thursday...could be feisty, then a possibility of some showers Friday, but less likely as air becomes drier by day's end. Nice weekend coming up! Churchill Downs had some damage Wed, night due to severe T-storms.
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