Deployment Plan: Saturday-Wednesday

Supporters: It looks like multiple opportunities for live storm chasing and at least a handful of chances to deploy part of the WeatherEye network. With multiple days of severe weather, target areas and drive time always is a big factor.

BUT FIRST…

Yesterday, we did a test deployment of our network. You can see below what a deployment looks like in the RadarOmega app. If you want to brush up on how to view the network in the app, go to this page.

Tomorrow (Saturday)

SPC: Saturday

Storms may form in that yellow slight risk area between 7 and 10pm central time. Whether this day ends up being covered really depends on a few things, but mainly 1-drive time from this target area to Sunday’s and 2-is it going to be dark out?

1- Sunday is certainly a more robust severe weather day farther east. It would be a big mistake to jeopardize a potent severe storm environment by not getting there in time because we were driving around in south central Kansas.

2- We’ll see what model data says this afternoon, but if it continues to show pretty ‘average looking’ storms after dark, it will be best to just skip it. Different story if we were talking something more significant, however.

Sunday (The Bigger Day)

SPC: Sunday

There’s a really big area of interest for Sunday, with this level 3/5 zone. Texarkana all the way to nearly Toledo, Ohio, and as far west-to-east as Springfield, Missouri to Columbus, Ohio. Somewhat hard to nail down a target area, which will be about 30% the size of the enhanced to account for drive time, fuel, etc., but it looks like far southern Illinois to a bit south of Memphis may be a safe tentative bet for right now. Obviously that may change, possibly significantly, especially as higher resolution model data comes in range later Saturday afternoon.

The SPC mentions a favorable wind profile for rotating storms (tornadoes?) and the expectation of supercells for a few hours before eventually a line segment forming and posing mostly a strong wind risk.

Expecting a deployment on this day.

Monday

SPC: Monday

Expecting whatever is left of Sunday’s event to continue east thru Monday. Some new development is possible, also. Not a whole lot of storm energy (CAPE) is available, but a high shear (favorable to strong storms) environment is in place, which may compensate for the meager CAPE values north of the Carolinas. For the Carolinas and south, CAPE is less of a concern. Perhaps this could be more of a focal point— the southern half of the risk.

Project WxEye activity is going to be based off of whether or not drive time allows to get into position on this day.

Wednesday

SPC: Wednesday

Looking like Wednesday will feature another giant severe weather risk area, from Texas to Michigan. Some models hint that a more significant severe weather risk may happen on this day, but it’s still nearly a week away. With that said, there’s also a lot of model disagreements. Monitor this day— it would be a likely deployment opportunity.