Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Chicago/Romeoville, IL
1247 PM CDT Tue Jun 25 2024
KEY MESSAGES...
- Two potential rounds of severe thunderstorms capable of
producing damaging winds and flash flooding today. The first
window mid-morning across northern Illinois and the second
window late afternoon into mid-evening across much of the
forecast area.
- Another period of active weather with strong to severe
thunderstorms and flash flooding is possible Friday into
Saturday.
&&
DISCUSSION...
Issued at 413 AM CDT Tue Jun 25 2024
Through Tonight:
A substantial pool of high theta-e air in eastern Iowa owing to low
to mid 70s dew points will gradually advect eastward into the
forecast area this morning below a growing EML plume. The result is
an impressive CAPE profile primed for explosive thunderstorm at any
point through this evening. The major caveat is the corresponding
cap that will also be advecting into the area this morning. At this
time, we are focused on two areas of potential severe convection in
our area:
1) A mature MCS across central/east-central Wisconsin has started to
turn more south along the existing MUCAPE gradient as the veering
low-level jet impinges on the western flank of the line. Recent
elevated convection developing over southwest Wisconsin indicates
that the incoming EML has not capped the environment east of the
Mississippi River. So, there is growing concern that the gap between
this convection and the MCS begins to fill in over the next hour or
two and grow upscale into northern Illinois in the 6-10am window.
Will be closely watching this activity through sunrise as the
downstream thermodynamic environment supports a damaging wind threat
with any convection this morning.
2) Conditional on the absence of any substantial lingering cold pool
across northern Illinois through mid-morning, recent CAM guidance
suggests convective temps in the mid to upper 90s may be reached by
mid afternoon. With a mid-level wave over eastern NE/SD and
resultant convective enhancement of a decaying MCS early this
morning, this feature may provide the needed forcing to allow
convection to rapidly grow roughly around the I-80/88 corridors by 3-
5pm. Though deep-layer shear will be quite modest, MLCAPE values
over 4,000 J/kg and DCAPE values surpassing 1,500 J/kg will support
initial discrete cells/clusters with damaging hail/winds congealing
into a slow-moving line with damaging winds and flooding from
torrential rainfall. Ultimately, the convective line should drift
south through the remainder of the CWA through this evening,
continuing to produce a notable flood threat as low-level flow
becomes only slightly oblique to the convection (and backward
propagation vectors begin to turn to the southwest).
Kluber
Wednesday through Monday:
A cold front will press across the region on Wednesday. Depending
on how things evolve Tuesday evening and overnight, some
convection may be ongoing across the area Wednesday morning,
mainly south of I-80, but the trend should be towards a drier one
through the day. Some guidance does show some fairly deep boundary
layer mixing developing through the afternoon, perhaps enough to
pop a few high-based showers, but this doesn`t seem like a
significant enough signal to justify PoPs at this point. A brief
period of dry and quiet conditions will then prevail through
Thursday as a transient region of high pressure drifts overhead.
By Thursday night into Friday morning, the surface high will be
departing and shuttling across the northeast, yielding a return of
moist southerly trajectories in the region. A series of low-
amplitude/subtle shortwaves emanating from a robust upper low
pinwheeling across Montana and into Saskatchewan will likely get
swept up within freshening mid and upper level west-southwesterly
flow. This in turn will lead a commensurate increase in low-level
warm advection across Iowa, which will eventually spill east of
the Mississippi River during the day on Friday.
Latest model guidance suggests that warm advection/isentropic
upglide-induced convection will probably develop late Thursday
night into Friday morning across Iowa within the plume of
returning elevated instability. However, latest indications are
that this activity may outpace the slowly-returning elevated mixed
layer leading to a gradual weakening trend through the day.
However, Friday night continues to look like a period we`ll have
to watch closely, as another area of low pressure and associated
cold front will be impinging on the region from the north. Ahead
of this, intensifying warm advection acting on any remnant outflow
from morning activity will also finally be able to impinge on the
returning warm/moist sector as the kinematic parameter space also
becomes more supportive of storm organization. Still pretty far
out with plenty of spread and uncertainties, but this is a period
we`ll continue to closely eye for a severe and also flash flood
potential with PWATs forecast to surge into the 2 to 2.5 inch
range.
We`ll get into another brief quiet period over the weekend as high
pressure returns. From a synoptic perspective, winds may surge a
bit down the lake as the high arrives which could yield a building
wave/rip current potential over the weekend.
Carlaw
&&
AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z THURSDAY/...
Issued at 1239 PM CDT Tue Jun 25 2024
Key messages...
- Confidence in the timing of storms/wind direction changes is
lower than usual.
- Thunderstorms will redevelop across the airspace late this
afternoon, but confidence on whether they hit the Chicago
terminals is low. They may remain south of the terminals.
- Gusty winds will accompany thunderstorms. If TS hits the
terminals, winds will veer around to E, SE before shifting
back to SW overnight.
- Showers and thunderstorms will move through the region again
overnight, again with low confidence on coverage and location.
Higher confidence exists in these getting close to or
remaining south of the terminals.
The main forcing mechanism for storms later today/this evening will
be along a front which is currently focused in IA and extends along
I-88 into IL. This will be focus for isolated to scattered TS
later this afternoon and evening. Right now it appears a few storms will develop
,
but coverage does not look to be high enough late this afternoon
and evening to include a formal TAF mention just yet. Higher
confidence exists in these becoming focused along and south of
I-80 with time this evening.
Showers and storms may also continue into the overnight hours ahead
along and ahead of an approaching cold front. This appears to be
a bit more favorable period for showers or storms in the area,
though again it is not clear how far north these will be. Winds
will become variable in and around storms.
Winds will shift to north-northeast on Wednesday. Timing may
need to be tweaked on this for ORD/MDW.
KMD
&&
LOT WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
IL...None.
IN...None.
LM...Small Craft Advisory until 1 PM CDT this afternoon for the IL
and IN nearshore waters.
&&
$$
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