Temps 👇🏽. Want to get right in to severe potential Weds 2/28/24.

SPC outlooked Wednesday, Feb 28, 2024, for severe weather potential.

This outlook means 15% probability of a severe thunderstorm (defined: hail, and/or damaging straight line winds, and/or tornado) within 25 miles of you.

It also means an 85% probability of a severe thunderstorm not coming within 25 miles of you.

But statistically, a 15% outlook on Day 6 in late Feb is not a great sign.

Concern is raised because two major global weather models show collision of warm, moist air on a south wind with a cold front sweeping across. First the Euro:

And second, the GFS:

🎵 Models agree there should be music (in this bad analogy, good music = bad storms), but the band has not been chosen, so it remains to be seen whether the music will come together, and if so, whether the band gets booked to play locally. Who knows the future with certainty? The band could be on weed, the bass guitarist on a hunger strike, the lead singer suffering from poleaxed vocal cords from a kickball incident.

Timing/ETAs and threats will change as the event nears and higher resolution model data gets in range. This event does not give me heartburn right now, and my anxiety levels are pretty low. Reason: dewpoints look relatively low for a big event, and the event may be a mirage. This “severe potential” setup is common, only a minority of events materialize, and those that do more often than not miss us.

The setup shows potential for some severe thunderstorms, but at this point, the message of severe potential is just a “heads up” to pay attention to future forecasts. Models are varying significantly with timing of the front and it is just too soon to have any confidence in details like timing or storm mode.

NWS-Nashville, AM Forecast Discussion, 2/23/24 (emphasis added).

By “storm mode,” they mean whether storms will feature hail, damaging straight line winds, and/or tornado.

Obviously, late Feb / early March is for sure tornado season (begins Jan 1 and ends Dec 31), so you need to be prepared, have a plan, know where to go and what to do if it turns out to be a tornadoday. This is not the last one of these we’ll have this season.

Heads up for future forecasts.