Forecast discussion for Western/Northwestern WI

This forecast discussion will revolve the very slight change of severe thunderstorms this afternoon and into the evening... Then another more powerful cold front to be a better chance at a widespread severe thunderstorm outbreak to the FA for Wednesday and Wednesday night....


***CURRENT CONDITIONS***

Temps this morning are in the upper 60s to lower 70s dewpoints lower 60s...Winds ranging from 5 to 8 MPH from the South/Southwest....Skies as you have noticed are cloudy... Checking the radar data, we find an areas of showers with a few ISO thunderstorms from Washburn, Sawyer Counties reaching South/Southwest through Barron, Rusk, Dunn, Chippewa, Eau Clarie ,Eastern Pierce, and Pepin Counties.... This area of rain is drifting towards the East/Northeast.... We also find another area of showers up in Douglas County this area is also moving East/Northeast....

***FORECAST DISCUSSION***

SFC analysis.... SFC chart show a 1003 low pressure over Northeast MN far Northwest WI... Meantime a cold front reaches from Northern Central MN back down into Northeast SD then cuts through the state of SD to Southwest SD...Cold front is forecasted to drift to move into far Northwest WI/Eastern MN later this afternoon... A shortwave over far Northeast NE is forecasted move East into Southern WI along with the cold front by later this evening/overnight hrs....Lifted Index is forecasted to around -2c to -4c thinking this may be over done a tad....Since we really don't have good SFC heating taking shape...Cape is forecasted to be around 1500 J/KG to 2500 J/KG this afternoon out and along the foresaid cold front... Dewpoints should remain the lower to middle 60s today....Wind shear really not that impressive... Nevertheless there shall be plenty of lift along the frontal boundary... Showers and thunderstorms are forecast to fire up and move towards the East/Southeast.... As far as severe weather chances go...Limiting factors 1 Little in the way of SFC heating... If we can break out into a few hrs of sunshine that would raise the instabilities...2 wind shear is rather on the low side for widespread severe thunderstorms.. 3 If a complex of thunderstorms form South of the area which models are showing this will rob some of the moisture flowing into the FA to some degree...... With that said severe thunderstorms chances ATTM are rather low.... Not saying we won't see a few severe storms...

Monday through Tuesday high pressure builds into the area this will allow for cooler temps and dewpoints shall be lower, however with evaporation from the corn/tress dewpoints upper 50s lower 60s seem the way to run...

Wednesday is the day all of the Northern forecasters and stormchasers are watching.... Strong cold front is forecasted to move into the area during primetime heating moisture will stream back into the FA rather fast...Upper level support is setting up over MN/WI.... One problem I see right now... If thunderstorm complexes form Tuesday night and are slow to clear... This would limit SFC heating and instabilities hence lowering the severe weather threat.... This is still way out there in time so I won't lose any sleep over this the next couple of night....

Main threat from today's severe thunderstorms if the form would be large hail and areas of damaging winds... Tornado threat is low, however severe thunderstorms can produce tornadoes....