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Pattern April Showers

Beginning of April looks to keep that damp look! I like it!
 
Shouldn’t have much severe to worry about if the temperature forecasts hold up the way they are looking now. Winterish spring won’t let go.

Winterish spring can only hold off severe for so long. We eventually reach a point usually sometime in April (sometimes May) where big cold shots can be your biggest enemy if you don't like severe weather
 
The longer this goes on into April, the more uncertain I become whether this configuration will be beneficial or a detriment to severe weather, we had the outbreak in AL in a pattern loaded w/ cold...
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Winterish spring can only hold off severe for so long. We eventually reach a point usually sometime in April (sometimes May) where big cold shots can be your biggest enemy if you don't like severe weather

This makes sense. I'd think that a cold spring would often mean more of a delay but not denied spring severe season. So, perhaps May this year will be more active than the typically most active month of April and June may be more like a typical May if this chilly pattern were to continue??
 
Yeah that doesn’t necessarily scream severe outbreak unless you’re on the I-4 corridor in Florida.

We had a sizeable outbreak in an even colder pattern in northern Alabama this previous week, the averages for most of the south in early April are in the 70s, slightly below average temps doesn't preclude severe at this time of the year necessarily up to I-40 but yes I'd agree to a point that it's not ideal by any stretch of the imagination
 
This makes sense. I'd think that a cold spring would often mean more of a delay but not denied spring severe season. So, perhaps May this year will be more active than the typically most active month of April and June may be more like a typical May if this chilly pattern were to continue??

Most of our severe weather events in the front half of the season lack CAPE but have plenty of shear while as we get later into the year towards May and June, we tend to have plenty of CAPE but the jet stream and associated shear is focused well to our NW that it becomes a limiting factor. Based on the SPC's sig TOR climo, the most favorable intersection of both CAPE and shear is around mid April in the southeastern US and of course May in the southern plains. Thus I think it's reasonable to assume that somewhere in/around the 3rd week of April or so, which thereafter our sig TOR climo starts to fall as shear often becomes limiting. Therefore, if we have a cold pattern in place w/ the jet stream displaced further south, it actually can be favorable to severe weather and tornadoes here instead of a hinderance as it is in a good part of Feb/Mar minus perhaps the Gulf coast. If this pattern persists another 3 weeks or so (give or take a week), that's when I'd estimate a chilly pattern more often turns against us rather than for us. Every year is obviously different and the intensity, longevity, and breadth of intruding arctic air masses matter a lot too but this is what our long-term climo suggests. Regardless, I'm all for keeping the heat and humidity at bay a little longer.
 
Webber, why does the severe weather threat shift west the later you go in the spring ? Is the jet stream further south the further west you go ? If so why is that the case ?
 
Spring who?
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