Bragging rights?

This was a #seetext kind of day. It was hard to get folks motivated, myself included. This was due to many factors including supercomputer issues and a whole lot of uncertainty in whether storms would form in areas with decent moisture and shear. But after a bit of digging into the maps a few areas presented themselves, including NE and IA into WI, and south Texas. After a bit of debate we decided to tackle the interesting situation along the front and remnant convection in IA and WI.



It got really exciting when a few models were producing just enough storms in this moisture starved and superheated airmass to yield heat bursts in the hi res models. That got my attention and consequently became the running joke of the day. I even put an "H" in the area I thought might get a heat burst*! Meanwhile I had to fight hard to get any sort of probabilities in the forecast and had to withstand the updates shrinking our probability area. Not everyone was as gung ho with acknowledging the presence of storms and subsequently the other team scuttled this forecast, opting to not include a 5 percent risk area.

Well popcorn storms did initiate in this very dry air mass, and did so with the rapid development of strong winds. One of which was "significant" meeting the 65 mph threshold.  The area of showers and storms moved east into southern WI causing damage.

This was a tough forecast. Again the uncertainty remained high and the models delivered a signal. Granted we debated whether it was signal or noise. And the forecasts speak for themselves. These so-called marginal days pose some interesting problems. These events really test our models, and reveal quite clearly that we do not observe the atmosphere as well as we need to make such precise risk forecasts.

The other highlights of the day:
1. KSUX hit 106, a new record for May.
2. Parts of MN hit 100F while less than 10 days ago had 10" of snowfall!
3. Standard operational models including the NAM, GFS, and SREF had 70 dew points in Iowa, and verified around 55-60. Evapotranspiration in model land was high while actual corn has barely been planted (only 17 percent of IA, compared to the ~65 percent in the last 5 year average) and therefore not available to provide such high dew points.

I probably lost the heat burst battle and therefore I will forever be scorned in the HWT. No bragging rights for me.