6/28 - 2:30pm - Severe Chances Increasing

The reason I posted so late today was so that I could get a handle on the severe weather situation this afternoon and evening. As of right now we are in a SLIGHT RISK (15%) area for severe storms. This is up from just 5% on this morning's outlook.

At the moment, we are just inside a Mesoscale Discussion area. This simply means that meteorologists at the Storm Prediction Center are carefully monitoring our area for severe weather. Our biggest threats, according to the discussion, are heavy rain and high wind. Here's the graphic:



The current radar view is showing some scattered heavy downpours preceding a larger line of strong storms. I'm currently testing a trial version of some nifty radar software and its telling me that there is some hail in the cluster just NW of Evansville. Sometimes the system gives false positives on hail, so I can't be sure. Some of the cloud tops are being measured at 30,000 to 40,000 feet right now, which is high enough to get hail going. Although I'm not sure of the temperature at that altitude, which is a huge factor in this.

I don't think there is a huge hail threat though, because nothing is showing up on the storm reports yet. Also, its probably not large hail if there is any...

If we start getting severe thunderstorm warnings showing up near Louisville, I'll go ahead and start broadcasting on my severe weather coverage. This is only if it gets to where I'm sure that Louisville will experience severe weather.