Day 163: Heavy Rain Tonight

Posted by pmarsh on 12 Jun 2010 | 0 comments

VORTEX 2 attempted to operate in the Texas panhandle this afternoon on a thunderstorm that produced a short-lived tornado and 6″ diameter hail. The hail was so large that it smashed through the vehicle’s windshield. Yikes! Unfortunately (or maybe in this case fortunately) for VORTEX 2 the thunderstorm weakened substantially before they were able to deploy. Additionally the storm began to turn into a huge thunderstorm complex resulting in a lot of heavy rain.

Several hours later, the heavy rain threat is continuing to increase as the number of thunderstorms increase across the central United States. These thunderstorms are tapping into an extremely moist airmass across the southern United States, so they will be efficient rain makers! This is part of the heavy rain threat forecast by the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HPC)discussed briefly in last night’s post.