It is a cool and partly sunny afternoon around the region. And it doesn’t seem like it would be a day with severe weather chances.
But once again today, there is a chance for storms around the area, and some of these could be on the strong to severe side. Damaging winds are the main threat, as has been the case for most of the past week, but large hail is also possible. In fact, we’ve already seen large hail in some parts of the state today.
The visible satellite this afternoon shows the storms nicely.
But the best way to see the culprit in this active weather pattern is to look at the water vapor channel on the GOES satellite.
The loop shows the upper-level disturbance that has been parked over the Ohio Valley and eastern Great Lakes for the past several days. It’s part of a pattern known as an Omega Block, so called because of its resemblance to the Greek letter omega. The disturbance is in the middle levels of the atmosphere but has been keeping the weather active over our area. The good news in our forecast is that this pattern is beginning to break down and move off to the northeast. After a chance for showers tomorrow, the weather finally calms down, and rain chances go away for a couple of days. Another system makes its way through the region later this week, but it moves away in time for the weekend, leaving us dry and seasonable on Sunday.
