Rainfall Totals From May 27th Storm

Here are some rainfall totals from around the region for the storms that rolled through our area May 27th.

Rainfall totals from May 27th storm. Some places saw over an inch of rain in
a short amount of time.
Values from wunderground.com

Memorial Day Forecast

Bust out the sunscreen and wear some light clothes for Memorial Day..it'll be a scorcher! Temperatures are expected to hit the 90s in the late afternoon with mostly sunny skies all day.  There is a slight chance of a thunderstorm for the early evening hours but most of the region will keep dry. I compiled a list of past Memorial Day weather going back 5 years.


 Past Memorial Day Weather (KGKJ - Port Meadville Airport)

Year       High       Low          Weather
2011       87           63            Sunny
2010       84           64            Thunderstorms
2009       75           51            Sunny
2008       79           55            Showers
2007       73           55            Partly Cloudy

Forecast for this year
2012       91           64            Mostly Sunny
                                              PM T-Storm?


** Record high for May 28th is 88 set back in 1978.  It looks like we will break that.


 If you are tired of the heat already...there is a cool down coming later this week.  More on that in a couple days.

NOAA Releases Hurricane Predictions

NOAA relased their annual predictions regarding the upcoming Atlantic Hurricane season, which runs June 1st to November 30th.  They are predicting 9-15 names storms, of which 4-8 will become hurricanes.  They expect 1-3 of those hurricanes to become major hurricanes, which requires a status of Category 3 or higher.  Here are predictions from different people and places for the upcoming hurricane season.

Predictions of tropical activity in the 2012 season

Source	Date	Named storms	Hurricanes	Major hurricanes
Average (1950–2000)[1]		9.6	5.9	2.3
Record high activity		28	15	8
Record low activity		4	2	0†
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
TSR	December 7, 2011[2]	14	7	3
WSI	December 21, 2011[3]	12	7	3
CSU	April 4, 2012[4]	10	4	2
TSR	April 12, 2012	13	6	3
TWC	April 24, 2012	11	6	2
UKMO	May 24, 2012[5]	10*	N/A	N/A
NOAA	May 24, 2012	9-15	4-8	1-3
TSR	May 24, 2012	13	6	3

Source: Wikipedia

Some are on there twice as they have made revisions throughout the last few months.
Hurricanes are classified on the Saffir-Simpson scale:
                
                   wind (mph)
Category 1:   74-95
Category 2:   96-110
Category 3:   111-129
Category 4:   130-156
Category 5:   >= 157

The season hasn't officially began yet but there has already been one named storm: Alberto.

Summer Like Temperatures For End of Week and Weekend.

Looks like we'll get an early taste of summer starting Thursday and lasting through the weekend.  A deepening trough in the west and a ridge in the east will contribute to very warm temperatures Thursday through Sunday for the eastern half of the US.  Looks like temperatures will be in the upper 80s and could even come close to hitting 90 Sunday.  There will be plenty of sun time over this four day span but there is a slight chance for some showers/storms on a couple of the days.  Overall, it will be a decent end to the work week and weekend.

	High Temps °F	Record °F
Thursday	84	88
Friday	86	87
Saturday	85	85
Sunday	87	85
Avg High	85.5

Here is the GFS MOS temperatures for the next 7 days along with the normals for Wednesday.

     WED 23| THU 24| FRI 25| SAT 26| SUN 27| MON 28| TUE 29|WED CLIMO
 N/X  53  77| 60  83| 62  84| 60  83| 65  87| 65  86| 63  76| 56 48 72

The GFS and Euro model both have our area close to the 90 degree contour for Sunday.  I wouldn't be surprised if we came close or hit 90.

18 Z Sunday Euro model of temps:  Light purple are 90s while dark purple is 80s.

18 Z Sunday GFS model of temps:  Light purple are 90s while dark purple is 80s.

Saturday's Chase Recap

Panoramic view of the approaching storm and its
structure.  A tornado warning was issued right after
this was taken.

The two cells we were chasing.  The white square
is where we were located and the white circle was where
somebody reported seeing a tornado a few minutes after we
saw one.

Saturday turned out to be pretty exciting. We went out to Salina, KS to start and we decided where we wanted to go from there.  We ended up heading north to Concorida, KS.  After grabbing lunch, we proceeded to head north and eventually crossed the KS/NE border.  We then turned west on route 4 and started heading towards a cell.  There was another cell to the south of it and it looked like they were going to merge so we eventually came up on the structure of the north cell and pulled off to the side.  We snapped a few pictures of the incoming storm and eventually moved south to try to get to the south side.  As we began to head south two tornado warnings were issued for both cells.  We continued to move south and I looked to the right of us and I saw some rotating dirt out in a field.  It was tough to see because the wind had kicked up a wall of dirt that was blowing across the field but as I continued to look the dirt kept rotating.  It appeared to be a very weak tornado and looking at the SPC reports, one was reported just northeast of us. We kept driving and eventually pulled off and took on some heavy rain and gusty winds.  Then we drove to the west of the cells and they began to weaken so we started heading back south again.  At this time most of the cells were out of our range or weakening. 

Mammatus clouds to the south west of the cells.

Chase Time

The StormTrackerWx team is currently outside of Salina, KS.  We will be heading north in a bit for the northern KS, Nebraska border area.  Storms are supposed to fire up along the front as it pushes through this afternoon and evening.  We'll be streaming live video so make sure to check it out around 5PM this evening.  The SPC has also reduced the tornado outlook for today. 

Follow updates at @CrawfordWeather on twitter and facebook.
Track us live at live.stormtrackerwx.com

Upgraded Risk

Tornado outlook.

Woke up to some delightful information today.  The SPC has upgraded the risk for severe weather in Central KS and Southern NE.  They have expanded the severe and tornado outlook which has the StormTrackerWx team excited.  We will be departing soon for Salina, KS and we'll decide where to go from there.  We seem to be in the center of it all for now which is great.