The weather is nice today, but don’t get used to it.  Heavy rain and storms will form late tomorrow and continue into Friday afternoon.  More heavy rain is possible Sunday night and Monday.  Rainfall totals of 1-3" appear likely across all of our counties in the next few days.  Rivers are already high and flooding is going to become a bigger and bigger problem.  The parade of storms continues.

  Severe weather – with tornadoes – will be possible late Thursday into Friday.  Will have to keep a close eye on the moisture return with this system.  Winds fields will be strong tomorrow night.

  They are wrapping the house today – trying to get it in the dry.  Moving along, but we need more nice weather.  Not sure we can pull that off, though.

  We picked out a color – we are going to go with the color my grandmother’s house on the farm was.  Sort of a dark reddish color.  Then white trim and a black roof.  Also picked out decking.  Still working on the color for that.  Everything is moving along, though.

  Looked at some apartments in Murray today but no decisions on any of that.  They were nice.

Wrapping the house

Tony’s GQ shot – 🙂  My brother in law.  Had to make sure he didn’t fall out of the window.

Tony and Rodney – working on stair issues

Conduit has arrived for the wires for the weather instruments – solar panels – OEM antennas – and so on! 
That is a lot of conduit.  🙂

Color we are going with on the house

Tony looking at siding at the store in Paducah

Day 2 severe weather outlook – concerned about a tornado threat tomorrow night and Friday morning.
Will have to keep an eye on it.

My friend David Brown sent me this photograph from Canada.  CRAZY 😛

  Looks like we are in a risk for severe thunderstorms on Thursday night and Friday.  Strong storm will approach the region.  There will be a tornado threat especially late Thursday night and Friday morning.  As always the details won’t be known until we get closer to the event.  The last few outbreaks have produced severe weather in and around Paducah.  So, we will just have to keep an eye on this storm.

  Busy day ahead – I need to take a bunch of gasoline to the farm for Jason – doing the trenching.  Also picking out siding today – roofing – and decks.  We picked out all the appliances yesterday.  So, things are moving along.  🙂  Lot’s to do – lot’s to do.

  My forecast:

April 8, 2009:

Strong to severe thunderstorms will be possible later on Thursday evening/night and into Friday.

This forecast was issued by – Beau Dodson
Meteorological Specialist for the Paducah/McCracken County Office of Emergency Management

This outlook is issued for portions of southeast Missouri, South Illinois, southwest Indiana, State of Kentucky, West Tennessee, and northeast Arkansas.
Effective today through Monday.

Call To Action:  Spotters may be needed on Thursday evening or Thursday night/Friday.  Listen to NOAA Weather Radio for possible watches and/or warnings.  Still a number of uncertainties as how this system unfolds.

A significant storm system will approach the region on Thursday.  It will slowly move into Missouri on Friday and eventually Illinois and Kentucky later on Friday morning.  The track of this low is important as to where the severe weather threat setups. 

Severe Weather Threat:

At this time it appears there will be some chance for showers and thunderstorms as early as Thursday evening and into the overnight hours on Thursday.  Some of these could be strong thunderstorms – especially over Missouri and Arkansas.  The bigger threat comes on Friday.  CAPE values on Friday are very high over our region – NAM (computer model) is showing readings over 2000 for the Paducah area.  These are significant readings.  Lift index values are below -5 to -8.  So, instability is not lacking for Friday.   Timing of the system is in question, though.  If it moves through the area during the morning hours then that might very well lower our severe weather threat.  I am going to have to watch the track.

Storm mode – supercells and lines of storms are likely to form Thursday evening and into Friday afternoon.
Storm motion – storms will move east/northeast at 25-30 mph.
Severe weather type – large hail, damaging winds, heavy rain, lightning, and isolated tornadoes are possible. 

Thunderstorms are once again possible on Sunday and Monday.  It is too early to determine how that event will unfold.  We will have to keep eye on the storm track.  Further updates on that system will be forthcoming. 

Emergency management and officials should pay attention to rapidly changing weather condition Thursday/Friday and listen for later updates and possible watches/warnings.  I should have a better grasp of the weather forecast by Wednesday morning.

Also those with river interests should pay close to attention to crest forecasts.  Rivers are rising.

Links of interest

Storm Prediction Web-Site
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/

Regional Radar
http://wxweb.meteostar.com/radar/radar_link.shtml?map=SCR_BASE_REFL.gif

Large Regional Radar
http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/full.php

National Weather Service Paducah – watches/warnings
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/pah/

National Weather Service Memphis, Tennessee – watches/warnings
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/meg/

All NWS Sites
http://www.weather.gov/organization.php#maps

Beau Dodson
Meteorological Specialist for the Paducah/McCracken County Office of Emergency Management