Keep Your Eyes on Saturday

My meteorological intuition is firing up on Saturday's storm. It makes me uneasy...

I'm seeing an overall agreement on not a lot of upper level convection and more of a lower level event. Also, we seem to be getting a strikingly similar situation to a Nov. 1998 event that I remember slightly because it happened the day before my birthday. I know it was bad due to the historical charts and reports, but I also seem to remember having to be in the basement. There were 22 tornadoes across this neck of the woods during that event.

Here's why I'm uneasy. This strong lower level convection likes to spin up tornadoes like nuts. Upper level convection interferes with tornado growth, but as I said, that won't be occurring. I'm seeing consensus among the TV and NWS stations that we will get a squall line on Saturday evening late. This squall line would be very low-topped (no upper level convection).

Look, we're going to hit near 70 on Saturday. Only a couple days after that we will be in the 50's and 40's, a big change. Like I said last night, a big temperature change doesn't come without something wild happening.

If this really does happen like the 1998 event, we are in for a treat (for storm lovers, like moi) or a problem (for everyone else). From a safety standpoint, make sure your flashlights have batteries and your weather radios are in good condition this week. The straight line winds will knock out power in many places on Saturday. I know I sound sadistic, but I kinda wanna see a funnel cloud this weekend. Of course I don't want one to touchdown for the sake of life and property, but I really haven't seen one before (and I want a video of it to put on YouTube).