Storm Forecast
Valid: Sat 07 Apr 2012 06:00 to Sun 08 Apr 2012 06:00 UTC
Issued: Sat 07 Apr 2012 04:16
Forecaster: VAN DER VELDE
No threat level areas were issued, but see text.
SYNOPSIS
The upper cold low over Spain has weakened and is being absorbed by a large 500 hPa trough stretching from northern Scandinavia into central Europe and Mediterranean, slowly shifting eastwards. Surface low pressure reaches from the western Mediterranean to the Baltic region with a lee side low south of the Alps. Other lows with associated unstable air are found over far northern Scandinavia and southwest of Portugal. Modest MLCAPE is present over a large area. A 40-55 m/s strong jetstream at 300 hPa lies over the southern Mediterranean and Greece.
DISCUSSION
...southern Hungary region...
Moderate 15 m/s deep layer shear will be available to storms which can group in organized multicells, with an isolated supercell not excluded. However, buoyancy is rather weak towards colder altitudes. Hail is likely but should mostly remain below 2 cm size.
...Ligurian coast...
During the evening a low pressure center is predicted to lie off the coastline with marginal CAPE but a maximum of shear: 20 m/s DLS, 10 m/s LLS and 300 m2/s2 0-3 km SREH in a small region. One could not exclude the possibility of a tornado being produced, if a storm should indeed form.
...Albania, western Greece...
A region with too marginal instability but decent wind shear. SREH gets interesting in HiRLAM (200 m2/s2) along with uncapped parcels, but little if any precipiation is forecast in various models, best chances in the north of Greece, while Albania with less shear has some marginal chance of a local excessive convective rain event.
...Balearic islands to Sardinia...
A region with more than 25 m/s deep layer shear and some CAPE in HiRLAM and GFS, but the models do not squeeze out much precipitation, perhaps due to capping as indicated by LFC-LCL differences, except close to Sardinia starting in the evening. Even so, low level shear isn't great and neither is the amount of CAPE, hence a low severe weather potential.
