A severe weather outbreak is likely across Southern Indiana today!
The SPC has placed us in a MODERATE RISK for severe weather today! This is an extremely dangerous situation and needs to be monitored closely.

Here’s what the radar looked like at 8:45am this morning. You can see a very dangerous squall line over Illinois. This will push slowly east through the day and will have damaging effects on our region.

Ahead of this main line of storms, supercells may develop. The NWS has issued a PDS Tornado Watch until 5pm for a large part of Indiana. A PDS Watch is rare, it stands for Particularly Dangerous Situation and is reserved for those situations where an outbreak is highly likely to occur.

This watch is for supercells that look to develop ahead of the main line. I believe almost all of the area will be under another Tornado Watch tonight as the main line moves through!
Instability is already starting to ramp up. 10am analysis from the Storm Prediction Center shows 500 units of CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy – a measure of instability) over all of Southern Indiana. Some spots as high as 1,000 already. This will increase even more in the afternoon hours.

EHI (Energy Helicity Index) values are also high. This indicates the tornado threat. Everyone is already at 1 and portions of the area are a 2 or 3! A reading of 1-5 indicates EF2 or EF3 tornadoes are most certainly possible.

We also have a very powerful Low Level Jet above us. 60-70 knot winds on this chart would be 70-80mph winds about 1500ft above our heads! That’s some strong fuel for tornadic storms.

So let’s talk about timing. I do think we’ll see a chance of some supercells developing today ahead of the main line, but let’s look at the main line itself as that will be the main threat for most of us. Models vary on timing unfortunately!
HRRR (High Resoultion Rapid Refresh – best high res short term model we have) – 6pm

So I think sometime after dinner is a safe bet. I don’t think this is going to be an overnight event. 6-8pm looks to be the sweet spot for the line to hit the Indiana/Illinois border in the Evansville area. Then it will be another 3-4 hours to cross Indiana before exiting into Ohio. So we should hopefully be in the clear for all the area by midnight. Hopefully anyway! If this line slows down, we could be in for a long night. Not looking that way as of when this post is being written.
Now is the time to have a tornado safety plan in action for your home! Make sure you have batteries in your NOAA weather radio in case the power goes out. Make sure you have it turned on as well! Get a flashlight handy if the power goes out. Know where you will go if a tornado warning is issued!
Here are some safety tips to remember:

As always, I’ll be monitoring the situation and providing you with up to date data. I update Facebook and Twitter often. Be sure to like those pages to keep up to date! And check out our new website for even more great information, including a full 7 day forecast updated every morning!




























































