NDCMP Weather Forecast

	District 1					District 2
Transition (UTC)		0		3			23		7
	First		Second		Third	First		Second		Third
Forecasted Weather	NO SIG		TSRA		RAIN	NO SIG		TSRA		RAIN

Forecaster: Joseph Russell

Synopsis

An interesting forecast for today as we see a bit of a shift in our overall pattern for the project areas.�

� A large but skinny upper-level ridge is the dominating story for the overall pattern and is the primary driver for the drier and warmer conditions we've been experiencing over the past few days. There is an end in sight as troughing is building across the Pacific Northwest which will help shift this ridge east before too long and bring increased chances for precipitation of some type. Closer to the surface, mixing dry air down to the surface paired with the ridge axis promoting a southwest breeze will allow surface temperatures to soar across the western half of the state with widespread 100+ expected with both D1 and D2 having the potential for reaching up to 110F across the western part of the districts. There is an end in sight as a cold front is slowly shifting its way east in association with a fairly large surface low parked across Canada and surface troughing that extends down into Wyoming. An increase in the LLJ as we move into the evening will help those surface Dews increase ever-so slightly and well see CAPE values increase as well but still very minimal for the time of year. Thunderstorms are likely to develop along that front across Central MT and slowly progress eastward, questions remain whether these storms will find the very low CAPE values sufficient to maintain their strength into W ND. Overall, lake of CAPE and very warm mid- to upper level temperatures mean the hail threat is very low and thus neither area is under a hail risk. Soundings reveal a classic inverted V sounding favoring strong downdrafts and thus making the primary risk elevated thunderstorms that may produce limited precipitation but lots of wind.�

D1: Conditions are significantly more conditional down there. CAPE will be very low and primarily across the western part of the district, favoring a rapid weakening trend as they move into the area. Forcing will be more than sufficient, and there is plenty of moisture in the mid-levels for at least rainshowers to maintain themselves through the district, but thunderstorms are questionable at this point. Despite this, I did place a TSRA risk from 0z-3z to cover when those MT storms will be approaching the district and depending on how established they are, they may make it eastly partially into the district before falling apart to just rain showers which may linger until 12z tomorrow.�

D2: Things are a little more certain here. CAPE values will be considerably higher across the northern and western parts of the district, favoring storms maintaining themselves, and even some models are favoring further development across, particularly Williams County. Again, the overall profile doesn't favor the development of hail but I was still borderline on placing a hail risk for the very slim chance we meet the criteria across W Williams county. With better forcing and energy available, ive placed a longer period of TSRA risk as they could survive on the LLJ into the night before dwindling down to just rain. Similar to D1, you may see rain linger into tomorrow morning.�