Unique Weather Scenario...

I feel like it has been awhile since I've posted, but now I am finished with the semester and ready for an exciting weather season!  We definitely had an interesting day today with some showers, thunderstorms, hail, strong winds, sunshine and if you noticed the clouds today - they were really cool!!!  So, I thought I would go into a more detailed explanation of what happened today because it was out of the ordinary - well the environment in which these "storms" formed was out of the ordinary because we were seeing a different set of ingredients.  Typically we look for warm, moist conditions at the surface ahead of a cold front or another lifting mechanism.  However, the situation today was one where the surface was fairly dry and there wasn't a lot of warm air pushing into the area.  The one ingredient we did have was a weak cold front and with sunshine this morning this provided enough instability for showers and an isolated thunderstorm to develop.  Now these showers and storms were not what we would consider "surface-based", but rather "elevated" because they developed higher up in the atmosphere where there was more energy to sustain them.  In additions to these conditions, winds were blowing out of the west-northwest ahead of the cold front and north-northwest behind the front.  Remember how I mentioned that the surface was pretty dry - dew points today were only in the 30s!  Well, this drier air helped to create the gusty winds that we had.  The reason is because winds increase with height and since it was drier at the surface, the stronger winds higher up in the atmosphere were able to "mix" or move down to the surface due in part to less friction.  Temperatures in the middle to upper-levels of the atmosphere were below freezing and this allowed for hail to form.  This is why we saw small hail, even up to 1" diameter farther west along with winds up to 50 mph or more!  In order for a thunderstorm to be considered "severe", hail must be 3/4" in diameter (dime-sized) and winds must exceed 58 mph.  There weren't too many warnings today, a few in the far north (Ashland/Iron counties ) and a couple west of the viewing area towards Eau Claire.

As for storm reports, there was some small hail with one storm that passed through the Wausau area but it was generally smaller than pea-sized.  Winds gusted up to 52 mph in Marshfield and even knocked down a few trees!  There were even some trees down in Fifield.  In Minnesota, there were shingles blown off of rooftops and a boat lift was even blown into a tree in Cass county.  If you took any pictures of the day's events, feel free to send them!!!  That is all for tonight, have a great night!

Meteorologist Megan Syner