Warm Temperatures and Severe Weather Outbreak!

Whether it is from the changing leave colors to Indian summer and mid Fall severe weather outbreaks, I must say, I absolutely love the Fall!
If you have been watching your local news for the past few days, you would have seen my fellows meteorologists (myself included) more or less freaking out about an intensifying storm over our Midwest states. This storm is EPIC!
 Forecast models have been in agreement for quite some time about the projected path and intensity of this storm. I know that when I was observing the models the other day, I did a double take because the power from this forecasted storm seemed to be so unreal! The low will deepen and strengthen to a storm that is near category 3 hurricane strength over northern Minnesota and Canada border region! The forcasted pressure is 959 mb; absolutely incredible!

00Z 10/27 Courtesy of NOAA/NWS/NCEP/HPC

The National Weather Service (NWS) and the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HPC) has issued severe weather warnings from blizzard warnings in North Dakota to tornado watches and warnings all through the Ohio River Valley, and all conditions are expected to worsen as the daytime heating continues, convection and instability rises to destabilize the atmosphere. All of this weather is forecasted to push North and East through midweek. However, for us in New Jersey/ New York there is a chance for a severe weather outbreak through Wednesday evening as the prevailing cold front pushes through the area, breaking our unseasonably warm temperatures. High temperatures in the area have been flirting with the 80s along with moisture, making this much like a summer-time airmass minus all the heat. Once the front passes over bringing with it a few severe storms through Wednesday, temperatures for the end of the week and weekend will feel cool and crisp with highs reaching to get to the middle 50s.

The Windy City (Chicago) is expected to become even windier with wind gusting up to 45-50mph plus and much will be the same for pretty much the entire northern Midwest. High surf in the Great Lakes and associated beach erosion and 20 plus foot fetch is also on the look out. Heavy rain associated with squalls is the next issue for the Midwest. These squalls can drop a significant amount of windswept rain in a short period of time. Blizzard conditions in parts of the Dakota, and wide spread tornado outbreak in the Ohio River Valley. This storms has all the classic ingredients of an epic Midwest cyclone!

Watches and Warnings 10/26 at 15:17 UTC coutesy of NWS.

This will be a huge wind storm for the Midwest. The record lowest central pressure recorded in Minnesota weather history is 28.42" Hg = 962.30 mb. This storm will certainly make the record books; a 959 mb "Land Bomb." The central pressure of this storm is lower then the central pressure of the notable Perfect Storm; an extratropical low that created absolute havoc along the Eastern Seaboard from October 29th-31st, 1991.

A lot of us Mets. have been referring to this storm as another Fitzgerald storm. On November 10, 1975, the ship Fitzgerald suddenly sank, with all 29 hands on deck, in Whitefish Bay while traveling on Lake Superior during a gale storm. The ship encountered a massive winter storm that reported hurricane-force winds and gusts with winds in excess of 58 mph (50 knots) with gusts up to 100 mph (86.9 knots), and waves as high as 35 feet. The Edmund Fitzgerald is the most famous disaster in the shipping history of the Great Lakes. There are a lot of similarities between this storm and the Fitzgerald storm. Thankfully though, the fishing season in the Great Lakes is near the end, and many ships and small boats are docked for the season.

The record breaking strong winds are due to essentially all of this 'air' being sucked into the center of this 959mb storm . The regions where the center of the storm passes over may not be as windy as surrounding areas, due to this.

The set-up: There was a strong upper level jet in excess of 200 mph. This set up the stage for the initiation of the low. A surface low associated with a cold front will deepen to 959 mb along with a strong Southwest flow prevailing the front adding the warmer and more moist air (contributing to the instability). One of the reasons for the strong winds is associated with the area of high pressure located along in Texas; the pressure gradient (the difference between the high pressure and low pressure). The tighter lines around the low in the Northern Midwest, also know as isobars, signifies the strength of the storm and also shows the movement of the air going from an area of higher to lower pressure. In the Northern Hemisphere for a low pressure system, air flows inward, spiraling counterclockwise.

Courtesy of Weather Underground
The area between the two pressure areas is where the the gradient is the greatest

Courtesy of MetEd/ COMET
This image shows the motion in the Northern Hemisphere of air flowing inward and counterclockwise for a low pressure area, and air flowing outward and clockwise in a high pressure area.

From winter blizzard snow in the Dakotas and Colorado higher elevations, record breaking winds and central low pressure storm in the Northern Midwest, severe weather outbreaks from the Ohio River Valley on Eastward, and Springtime thunderstorms, this storm by events' end will have impacted more then half of the country.

As for Tri-state, metropolitan area: mixed skies of sunshine, clouds, showers, and storms; quite unsettled for much of Tuesday through Wednesday. The strong cold front will push through Wednesday triggering off occasional storms clearing later Wednesday evening through Thursday. Thursday onward mostly sunny skies and temperatures beginning to fall towards the weekend with daytime high temperatures only getting as high as the middle 50s! It will feel like Fall once again!

(Note: I will have the final storm reports from this event, once this event is finished reeking havoc in the states Thursday).

~ V.S.