Severe Weather Update

Severe Thunderstorm Watch number 662 was recently issued.  This is due to a small, but severe MCS that has developed.  Here is the map:

Were doing a more detailed analysis than usual.  Now let's take a look at a 12 UTC sounding, or plot of the temperatures and winds in the atmosphere.  This is what the weather balloons that you here about measure.  Here is the one at Minneapolis:

This is a very favorable sounding.  There is a large amount of energy in the atmosphere, with a favorable hodograph for both damaging winds and maybe hail or an isolated tornado if some storm can become severe ahead of the line.  It remains to be seen if the storms will weaken as the Low Level Jet weakens considering the favorable environment.  However, their intensity will be maintained for a few hours.  Actually, the strongest storm is a supercell on radar, even displaying signs of mid-level rotation and hail:

Here is an image of a classic supercell for comparison:

There are some striking similarities.  We will be watching this closely.  It is on the edge of a favorable tornado environment, so it could go tornado.  Stay tuned!