Storm Forecast
Valid: Wed 03 Feb 2010 06:00 to Thu 04 Feb 2010 06:00 UTC
Issued: Tue 02 Feb 2010 22:51
Forecaster: PUCIK

SYNOPSIS

A deep trough, filled with arctic air will reside over most of Europe, its axis stretching from Western Scandinavia to Southeastern Europe with a slight movement to the East. Several impulses will rotate around this trough with the most developed one in form of a cut off low over Turkey. Another one, forming in the exit region of a jet-streak will affect the weather over Central Europe. Slight ridging is forecast over Southwestern Europe.

At the surface, a polar high over the continental Russia has become a stationary feature on the synoptic maps. Two deep low pressure areas will be observed - one over southern Sweden and another over the Black Sea. With cold and dry airmass taking up most of the European territory, conditions are too detrimental for any thunderstorm development, except for a few areas, that will encounter a slight chance of a thunder. These areas include the North Sea and Aegean Sea, but at the moment it seems, that chances of lightning are under 15% for those.

DISCUSSION

... Western Morocco, Southwestern Iberia ...

Area with the greatest chance of thunder will lie to the Southwest of Iberia, in connection to the weak depression that is travelling to northwest. Interestingly, this feature does not stand out on the mid and upper level charts and might have been partly reinforced by the convective processes ( therefore having some "warm core" characteristics). Strong southerly jet is forecast at 850 hPa level on the forward flank of the system. Very high precipitation amounts might be observed over SW Iberia and W Morocco in connection to the large stratiform precipitation shield. Embedded convection is possible but models agree on rather poor instability and only little fraction of the overall precipitation will result from the convective processes and therefore, no level is warranted.