Thursday's Severe Weather Threat

As of right now, there is a low risk of severe weather for parts of Region 8 for tomorrow, but we may bump some areas into the medium risk in later forecasts. The atmosphere is going to become increasingly more unstable as we go through the day tomorrow. This map shows the "CAPE" values or the energy needed to produce thunderstorms. The green areas indicate CAPE over 1000. That is enough to produce strong thunderstorms, if other conditions are present. This is the NAM model at 7PM:

This is the GFS CAPE projections at 7PM:

The NAM shows some storms coming in around the lunch hour, with redevelopment in the afternoon and evening. If the earlier storms do move in, they will likely NOT be severe. Both the GFS and NAM show a line of storms moving into Region 8 during the evening hours and they could be strong to severe. Here is what the NAM projects the radar to look like Thursday evening:

While this does look to develop into a line of storms with the main threat being straight-line wind and hail, a tornado can not be ruled out. As I said, the threat of you seeing severe weather at your house is low, but we may bump that threat up in later forecasts. Stay tuned.

Ryan