It’s spring time on the Great Plains, which means strong dynamical systems that often bring blizzards as well as severe thunderstorms. A long-wave trough with an embedded 850-500mb jet streak created cyclogenesis in western Oklahoma and southwest Kansas on March 13, with associated low-level moisture return into eastern Kansas.The strong... Read More

Cincinnati’s 25th running of the Flying Pig Marathon commenced on the morning of Sunday, May 7th, despite deteriorating weather conditions. After a round of storms at about 09:30 UTC, which subsequently passed through, race officials began the marathon as scheduled at 10:30 UTC. Figure 1 shows the composite reflectivity and LightningCast contours... Read More

There was a conditional outlook for severe storms in Oklahoma on April 19th, owing to uncertainty in the forcing for ascent and a stout warm-sector cap. Well, the cap broke, and mayhem ensued in central Oklahoma. A break in the cirrus deck in southwest Oklahoma likely contributed to surface heating... Read More

The NOAA/CIMSS ProbSevere LightningCast model uses GOES-R ABI reflectances and brightness temperatures along with artificial intelligence methods to predict next-hour lightning anywhere in the GOES-R field of view. It is particularly adept at nowcasting lightning initiation. A long, potent cold front spawned a number of storms from Iowa to Texas today... Read More