Impressive first system?? maybe weaker with strong 2nd wave...

huge storm system in the early stages dumping a ton of snow in the WY/CO area this evening and should continue into thursday with some areas possibly picking up 2-3 feet of snow!! this is being cause by a very large trof carved out over the western US. something pretty rare for this time of the year with numbers of -4.5 standard deviations. the sfc low then begins to head northeast through the dakotas into MN and really intensify along the way. not fast enough to throw out bombogenesis but impressive to say the least and could drop to near 976 once it passes over lake superior into canada.

as for the warm side of the storm, and some severe weather will be the main threat with this and alot of gulf moisture will work its way north and with a strong CF, people are going to get some heavy rain the mississippi valley down through the southern plains. right now AR is the QPF bullseye with possibly 6 inches of rain in some spots. it wont be as bad here but we could see possibly 1-2 inches and some thunder thursday night into friday morning before the CF passes through.

We could of been looking at a huge severe weather/tornado outbreak if we had some dam instability but that is not going to happen. lapse rates are going to suck. wind fields are very impressive in the plains and midwest and with a tad amount of instability, damaging winds in any thunderstorm/squall line would be the main threat. with near 60kts at 850mb, wouldnt take much here to mix down a severe gust in a thunderstorm late thursday night. TX/OK look to be the area for tomorrow and then all up and down the CF thursday from IL to LA.

the interesthing thing tonight on the 0z GFS run is how the first system comes out a bit weaker and a good amount of energy gets left behind and rounds the base of the trof and sits in TX/OK at 90 hours. it then organizes itself into a nice area of low pressure and runs northeast west of the apps into OH. the models have been trying to develop a second wave for days but this is by far the most aggressive run yet with it. It would be pretty hard to get snow but not impossible and with a stronger wave and better UVV, it could create its own cold air and maybe produce some snow. interesting to see how everything plays out.


Matt